
r" 

Class JL.4:^ 



Bonk - F^ ^ 



X 



/ 







HENRY S. FOOTE. 



WAR OF THE REBELLION; 



OK, 



SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 



CONSISTING OF 



OBSERVATIONS UPON THE CAUSES, COURSE, AND 
CONSEQUENCES 



OF 



€l)e £aU €iBil tUar in tlje Mniitii States. 
By H. S. FOOTE. 



Et pater Anchises : Nimirum hsec ilia Charybdis ; 
llos Ilelenus scopulos, h£ec saxa horrenda canebat. 
Eripite, o socii ; pariterque insurgite remis. 



NEW YORK: 

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 

FRANKLIN SQUARE. 

1866. 
\ .^ A ' 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand 
eight hundred and sixty-six, by 

Harper & Brothers, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District 

of New York. 



EPISTLE DEDICATORY. 



To the Honorable NoAH H. Swayxe, one of the Justices 
of the Supreme Court of the United States. 

More than forty years ago, my dear sir, you and I 
were youthful fellow-students of the legal science in the 
bosom of oun^oved native state, and in the sweet village 
of \Yarrenton, so memorable in its connection with the 
ever-shifting current of the recent most deplorable civil 
war. We were examined for license by the same 
judges, and at the same time, in the year 1823; after 
which, in a few months, you migrated to the State of 
Ohio, where you have since attained such eminence as 
a jurist and forensic advocate as few of your fellow- 
countrymen have been able to reach ; while the graces 
which distinguish you in social and in domestic life 
liave been such as to surround you with almost innu- 
merable friends, and apparently, too, without the cus- 
tomary drawback of those enmities which are unfortu- 
nately sometimes awakened in ungenerous bosoms even 
by the exhibition of superior merit. The friendly re- 
lations which existed between us in the days of open- 
ing manhood have been maintained up to the present 
moment, undisturbed even by the occurrences of a de- 
plorable civil war, the territorial character of which nec- 
essarily located ns, during its sanguinary continuance, 

A 



ii EPISTLE DEDICATORY. 

on op2:)osite sides ; a circumstance which, though it would 
have been necessarily fatal to ordinary friendsM])^ has, in 
our case, only served to draw more tightly the cords of 
sympathy, and to afford you an opportunity of proving 
in a thousand ways, as you have done, how possible it 
is for a truly magnanimous spirit to do justice, and to 
exercise the most generous kindness, too, toward those 
around whose character and motives of action untoward 
circumstances may have for a time cast clouds of un- 
merited suspicion, and which the undimmed eye of a 
true and resolute friendship could alone have been able 
to penetrate. 

Allow me the honor of giving you some additional 
assurance of my esteem, as well as of my gratitude for 
past kindnesses, by dedicating to you the following vol- 
ume; which, though the imperfect product of a few 
weeks' labor, and written under circumstances not very 
propitious to the display of mere literary ability, yet 
will, as I hope, serve to yield you more or less of en- 
tertainment in such moments of relaxation as may be 
occasionally allowed you when temporarily withdrawn 
from the arduous duties of the very responsible official 
position which you now so deservedly occupy and so 
signally adorn. 

H. S. FOOTE. 
New York, December, 18G5. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. 

Introductory Remarks. — Allusion to the "Irrepressible Conflict" Theory. 
— Dii-ect Issue made therewith. — Sectionalism. — Its dangerous Tend- 
encies. — Geographical Parties. — Washington's Warning against them. 
— Mr. Webster's Remarks upon Sectionalism. — Author's first Acquaint- 
ance with Mr. Webster in 1825. — Renewal of that Acquaintance twen- 
ty Years thereafter. — Allusions to Mr. Webster's Life and Character. — 
Remarks upon his great Ability as a Statesman and Orator. — His ami- 
able Qualities in private Life. — Mr. Webster's funeral Notice of his great 
Rival, Mr. Calhoun Page 13 

CHAPTER II. 

Early colonial Settlements in North America. — Character of the People 
very nearly identical. — Similitude of Customs, Language, Religion, 
Laws, and Mode of Life. — No Conflict of Sentiment then between the 
Colonists of the North and South in regard to African Slavery. — Tes- 
timony of INIr. Greeley on this Point, — Kindly social and commercial 
Intercourse between the Colonists North and South. — Their united 
Defense of the infant American Settlements against Indian Violence 
and the hostile French. — Early Suggestion of a confe'derate Union be- 
tween all the British Colonies in North America. — Strange Interpreta- 
tion of a Portion of the Language of the Declaration of Independence. 
— Mr. Jefferson's important Statement as to the Action of the Confed- 
erate Congress in regard to Slavery at the Time the Declaration was 
adopted. — Mr. Webster's important Recital of historic Facts connected 
with this Subject in his 7th of March Speech 30 

CHAPTER IIL 

Continuation of the same Subject. — Cession of Northwestern Territory by 
Virginia and other States in 1781. — Ordinance of 1787. — Federal Con- 



IV CONTENTS. 

vention. — Correlative and contemporaneous Action of that Body and 
of the Confederate Congress upon the Subject of African Slavery, — No 
Conflict worth mentioning then existed between the States of the North 
and the South in regard to African Slavery. — Action of Congress upon 
Abolition Petitions in 1790. — Congressional Resolution on the Subject 
of non-interference with Slavery in the States by the general Govern- 
ment for many Years faithfully observed in the North. — Mr. Webster's 
uncontradicted Statement on this Subject in the Debate between Mr. 
Hayne and himself. — Washington's Administration. — Election of John 
Adams ; his stormy Administration. — Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison, 
and Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, '9. — Nullification and 
Secession growing out of these. — John C. Calhoun. — Confederate Con- 
stitution professedly based upon the absolute Sovereignty of the States. 
— This Principle shamefully abandoned by the Confederate Government 
itself. — Successive Administrations of JNIr. Jefferson, Mr. Madison, and 
Mr. Monroe. — Rise of the Missouri Question, and violent Agitation con- 
sequent thereupon. — Wise and salutary Compromise of that Question. 
— Remarks upon the Value of legislative Compromises in general, with 
Mr. Calhoun's Views of the same Page 40 

CHAPTER IV. 

Happy Cessation of Excitement after the Adoption of the Missouri Com- 
promise. — Era of good Feeling during the Remainder of Mr. Monroe's 
Administration. — Presidential Contest of 1824. — Mr. Adams's Elec- 
tion by the House of Representatives to the Presidency. — Inaugural 
Speech of Mr. Adams. — Interesting Scene in the White House on the 
Occasion of President Monroe's taking Leave of his Friends to return 
to his private Home in Virginia. — Intense Excitement growing out of 
Mr. Adams's Election, but without any Intermixture of sectional Feel- 
ing. — Violent and illiberal Opposition to his Administration. — Defeat 
of Mr. Adams for Re-election in 1828, and Elevation of General An- 
drew Jackson in his Stead. — Rise of Nullification in South Carolina in 
1832. — General Jackson's Proclamation against South Carolina. — Mr. 
Clay's successful Scheme of Pacification, known as the Compromise 
Tariff Bill. — Origin of Abolition Societies in 1835. — Minute historical 
Account of these Societies given in Mr. Greeley's "American Conflict." 
— Mr. Webster's striking Remarks upon these Societies in his 7th of 
March Speech. — Author declines any special Notice of the Present a- 



CONTENTS. V 

tion of Abolition Petitions, and the excited Discussions growing out of 
the same. — Notice of the Acquisition of Texas with the general Con- 
sent of the American People. — Breaking out of the Mexican War, and 
Presentation of the Wilraot Proviso in the Midst thereof.— Author's 
Election to the United States Senate, with Jefferson Davis as his offi- 
cial Colleague. — Serious political Disagreements between them. — 
Sketch of President Davis's Character, with some Notice of his Histo- 
ry. — Session of the United States Senate commencing in December, 
184:7. — Mr. Dickinson's Non-intervention Resolution, and BIr. Cal- 
houn's extreme Opposition to it.— Curious colloquial Scene in the Sen- 
ate.— General Cass's Nicholson Letter.— Complimentary Notice of Gen- 
eral Cass Page 58 

CHAPTER V. 

Proceedings upon the Wilmot Proviso during the Congressional Session 
of 1847, '8.— Mr. Clayton's Compromise Bill, and its unfortunate Defeat 
in the House of Representatives.— General Cass as the Presidential 
Candidate of the Democratic Party in 1848. —The Contest between 

himself and General Taylor by no means of a sectional Character. 

Election of the latter. — Appearance of "William L. Yancey at the Balti- 
more Convention of 1848, and the prompt Rejection by that Body of 
his celebrated Protection Proposition. — Unfortunate Division of the 
Strength of the Democratic Party in 1848 between the Hunkers and 
Barnburners, resulting in the Nomination of Martin Van Buren and 
Cliarles Francis Adams by the Buffalo Convention.— Mr. Gott's Reso- 
lution.— Declaration, as early as 1843, by Messrs. Adams, Slade, Gid- 
dings, and others in Favor of dissolving the Federal Union in the Event 
of the Annexation of Texas. — Inflammatory Address issued by these 
Gentlemen. — Author's first acquaintance with John Quincy Adams 
and his accomplished Lady. — Commendatory Notice of his Life and 
Character. — Parallel between John Quincy Adams and John C. Cal- 
houn 73 

CHAPTER VI. 

Session of Congress closing on the 3d of March, 1849.— Important Test 
Question raised by Mr. Douglas, of Illinois, in Connection with the 
Oregon Bill, which was then pending.— Defeat of Mr. Douglas's Prop- 
osition by the unexpected but effective Interposition of Mr. Wm. H. 



VI COXTENTS. 

Seward, who had not yet taken his Seat as a Senator from New York. 
— Mr. Seward at that Time opposed to all Compromise of the Slavery 
Question. — Extract from a memorable Speech of his, delivered in the 
United States Senate in the Year 1850, having Relation to this Subject. 
— Mr. Seward's Cleveland Speech in 1848. — Important Extracts there- 
from. — General Taylor's Administration. — Violent Excitement begin- 
ning to rage both North and South upon the Slavery Question, and in 
Connection with the Admission of California. — Unfortunate non-ac- 
tion Policy of General Taylor's Administration. — Alarming Condition 
of the Country. — Election of Messrs. Gwin and Fremont United States 
Senators from California. — Attempt of Colonel Thomas II. Benton to 
revive his decaying Popularity by becoming the Champion of Califor- 
nian Admission. — Efforts of the Author to defeat this Scheme of self- 
ish Ambition. — Retrospect of Colonel Benton's Attempt, about the 
Close of Mr. Polk's Administration, to bring about the Rescission of 
the Treaty with Mexico, by which all the territorial Domain recently 
acquired would have been lost to the United States but for the Defeat 
of that Attempt. — Signal Defeat of this unpatriotic Scheme, and re- 
markable Particulars connected therewith not heretofore divulged. — 
Colonel Benton deprived in Democratic Caucus of the Chairmanship 
of the Committee of Foreign Affairs in the Senate on the Motion of the 
Author, after a two-days' Struggle, by a Majority of one Vote only. — 
Mr. Benton's extraordinary Attack on Mr. Calhoun and Others in his 
public Speech delivered in Missouri in the Summer of 1848, and Mr. 
Calhoun's overwhelming Response thereto, drawn up at Author's earn- 
est Instance. — Short Sketch of Colonel Benton's public Character, and 
Delineation of his intellectual Qualities , Page 94 

CHAPTER VII. 

Review of General Taylor's non-action Policy.— Painful and exciting 
Rumors in regard to the Instrumentalities employed by him to carry 
that Policy into Operation. — Intense Alarm awakened among Patri- 
ots as to the Fate of the Country. — Mr. Clay leaves his own Home, 
and comes to Washington upon a Mission of Pacification. — He is met 
upon his arrival there with general Cordiality and Respect. — Mr. Ben- 
ton attempts to inveigle him into a false Position in regard to the Meas- 
ure of admitting California, and is for a time successful. — Mr. Clay's 
Programme of Adjustment, and the "five bleeding Wounds." — Tliis 



CONTENTS. vii 

Gentleman severs his Alliance with Mr. Benton, and becomes the Cham- 
pion of the famous Omnibus Scheme.— rHis magnanimous waver of cer- 
tain abstract Opinions with a View to general Conciliation. — First meet- 
ing of the Nashville Convention. — Great Excitement consequent upon 
its Proceedings. — Anti-slavery Movements about the same Period, and 
Mr. Seward's anti-compromise Speech. — llesolution introduced by the 
Author, several weeks before, for the raising of the famous Committee 
of Thirteen, finally pushed to a> Vote at the Instance of Mr. Cass. — Emi- 
nently patriotic Conduct of Mr. Webster on this Occasion. — Resolution 
finally carried. — Mr. Clay appointed Chairman thereof, who speed- 
ily brings in his Report, upon which an animated Discussion oc- 
curs Page 113 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Great Compromise Struggle of 1850. — Mr. Clay and Mr. "Webster the prin- 
cipal Figures in the Picture. — Mr. Webster's 7th of March Speech, 
and its prodigious Efifect upon the Public Mind. — Striking Extracts 
therefrom. — Mr. Calhoun's last Speech in the Senate, in which he urges 
that the Admission of California shall be made a test Question. — Em- 
phatic Protest by the Author to this Portion of the Speech, and painful 
Altercation with Mr. Calhoun in Reference to the disputed Point. — 
Proceedings of the Nashville Convention. — Wise and patriotic Conduct 
of Judge Sharkey, the President thereof, which prevents immediate 
Mischief. — Judge Sharkey arrives in Washington, and is offered the 
Department of War, which he declines. — Some Account of Judge Shar- 
key's Life and Character 129 

CHAPTER IX. 

Omnibus Bill under Consideration. — Strenuous Opposition of General 
Taylor's Admiiiistration to its Adoption. — Last Appearance of Presi- 
dent Taylor in Public on the 4th of Jul}', 1850, at Monument Square, 
in Washington City, and touching Scene which occurred there. — Gen- 
eral Taylor's Decease a few Days thereafter. — Mr. Webster's eloquent 
Funeral Notice of him. — Mr. Fillmore's Inauguration as President, and 
efficient Support of the Compromise Measures. — Official Order found 
on General Taylor's Table after his Decease, ordering the forcible Ex- 
pulsion from New Mexico by the Military of Texan Settlers. — Mr. 
Clay's heroic Remonstrance against this coercive Policy, which he re- 



VI 11 CONTENTS. 

garded as needlessly endangering the Union. — Fierce Opposition to the 
Compromise Measures on the Part both of Extremists of the North and 
Extremists of the South. — Terrible Struggle over the Omnibus Bill in 
the Senate, which is finally broken into Fragments mainly by the In- 
discretion of its own Friends, but the integral Portions of which finally 
pass both Houses. — The Country quieted under the Influence of this 
Measure. — Sage and firm Conduct of President Fillmore in causing the 
Compromise Enactments to be every where faithfully executed. — Cel- 
ebrated Rescue Case in Massachusetts, and interesting Proceedings in 
Congress in Connection therewith Page 14:8 

CHAPTER X. 

Country completely restored to Quiet under the Compromise Measures, 
except in several of the Southern States. — Exciting Contest in Georgia 
and Mississippi in 1850, '1, upon the Disunion Issue, in both of which 
States the Union Cause is finally triumphant. — South Carolina, failing 
to obtain co-operative Aid, at last subsides into a State of Quietude. — 
The Election of Mr. Pierce to the Presidency as an avowed Supporter 
of the Finality Principle, who calls Mr. Davis to the Department of 
War, and the Slavery Agitation is at once renewed. — Mr. Pierce's 
gross Infidelity to his Pledges, by whose Indiscretion and Misconduct 
the Conflict of sectional Factions is again revived. — Mr. Douglas un- 
fortunately yields to the Counsels addressed to him from various Quar- 
ters, and introduces the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. — Sectional Excitement 
greatly increased and intensified by that Measure. — Notice of the De- 

' cease of Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster, and of their commanding intellect- 
ual Powers and interesting Traits of Character 1G9 

CHAPTER XI. 

Excited Struggle in Congress over the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. — Manly 
but ineffectual Opposition to that Bill in Congress. — Regret expressed 
at the Disappearance from the public Scene of Mr. Clay, Mr. Webster, 
and Mr. Calhoun. — Confident Opinion expressed as to what would have 
been Mr. Calhoun's Course had he survived up to our Times. — Fearful 
awakening of sectional Excitement both in the South and in the North 
under the Influence of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. — Multiplied Scenes 
of Blood and Violence in the Territory of Kansas. — Mr. Pierce and his 
Cabinet lose the Confidence of all Men of true Nationalitv of Sentiment. 



CONTENTS. ix 

—Mr. Pierce defeated in the Cincinnati Democratic Convention by Mr. 
Buchanan, Avho is afterward elected to the Presidency by a plurality 
Vote over Fremont and Fillmore.— Mr. Buchanan delivers an Inaugu- 
ral Address as President, replete with national Sentiment, which at- 
tracts to him the Support of the American Party, and his Administra- 
tion grows overwhelmingly popular.— He afterward treacherously vio- 
lates all his Promises to the Country under the Threats of Southern Se- 
cession Leaders, and his Administration suddenly becomes both odious 
and contemptible.- TJhe Democratic Party of the North completely 
crushed and broken down by the fatal Lecompton Issue, and the way 
surely paved for the Election of a Republican President in 18G0.— Re- 
view of the State of Parties at that Period.— Some Notice of the Amer- 
ican Party and its particular Tenets.— Great Mistake of the Southern 
People in not yielding their Support to Mr. Fillmore in 185G.— Some 
Notice of the Republican Candidates for President and Vice-President 
in 1856, and of certain curious Scenes which took j^lace during the 
short period of General Fremont's official Connection with, that Body. 
—Sketch of General Baker, one of the earliest Victims of the War, and a 
recital of certain romantic Occurrences connected with his Residence 
in California and Oregon.— Signal Triumph of his extraordinary ora- 
torical Powers over popular Excitement and Prejudice Page 192 

CHAPTER XH. 

Some farther Notice of the "Irrepressible Conflict" Theory.— Analysis 
of the Condition of Parties at the Time of Mr. Buchanan's Inaugura- 
tion.— Statement of the Election Results during the first Year of his 
Administration. — Historic Recital of some important Facts which 
occurred during the Summer of 1857, anterior to Mr. Buchanan's suc- 
cumbing to the Dictation of the Secession Leaders.— Eilbrts to reani- 
mate his Courage made at that Period, all of which signally failed.— 
Recital of Particulars connected with the Lecompton Struggle in Con- 
gress.— Some Scenes, both amusing and painful, which at that time had 
their progress in Washington.— Remarkable banqueting Scene, in which 
Mr. Seward bore the principal Part.— Last Interview between Mr. Bu- 
chanan and the Author, in which some startling Revelations were 
ni^^^e , 219 

A2 



X CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Conspiracy of certain Senators to defeat the " Little Giant of the West" 
in his supposed presidential Aspirations. — Signal Triumph of this Gen- 
tleman as a Debater over all Opposition. — Opening of the senatorial 
Contest between Mr. Douglas and Mr. Lincoln, of Illinois. — Extraordi- 
nary Efforts of Mr. Buchanan and other Individuals of the Democratic 
Party to effect Mr. Douglas's Defeat and secure the Election of his Op- 
ponent. — Eventual Triumph of Mr. Douglas, who returns to the Senate 
to undergo Ostracism at the Hands of senatorfal Democrats in Caucus 
under the direction of Mr. Buchanan. — Deep Injury done to the South- 
ern Cause by the unjust Course pursued toward Mr. Douglas, which 
caused many of this Gentleman's political Supporters in the North to 
grow lukewarm in the support of Southern Rights. — Special Causes 
which now operated to produce sectional Excitement. — Indecent and 
ruffianly Assault upon Mr. Sumner. — Dred Scott Decision. — The South 
indiscreetly exultant over it, and the North indignant. — Attempt by 
certain Persons in the South to bring about the reopening of the Afri- 
can Slave-trade. — Important judicial Contest in Ohio touching the va- 
lidity of the Fugitive Slave Law. — Ossawatomie Brown upon a Ram- 
page in the Bosom of Virginia as a radical, political, and moral Re- 
former, ready to shed Oceans of Blood in defense of universal Free- 
dom. — Interesting Debate in the United States Senate on this Subject. 
— Impolitic Execution of Brown, by which he was unnecessarily made 
a Martyr Page 246 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Other Causes of sectional Excitement at this Period. — The Helper Book, 
and its unfortunate Discussion in Congress. — Resolutions forced 
through the Senate, mainly though the Agency of Mr. Davis, of Missis- 
sippi, having in View the double Object of destroying Mr. Douglas, and 
dragging the Democratic Party into an unnational and aggressive At- 
titude. — Movements of William L. Yancey in the Year 1859, and early 
in the Year 18G0, having in View the breaking up of the Federal Union 
in the event of a Republican President being elected. — Efforts in the 
South to bring about the Election of Mr. Lincoln, in order to obtain 
the desired Object. — Democratic Conventions at Charleston and Balti- 
more reviewed. — Leading Incidents of the Presidential Canvass of 18C0 
and its Results. — Sketch of William L. Yancev 204 



CONTENTS. Xi 

CHAPTER XV. 

Movements in the South looking to Secession.— South Carolina takes 
the Lead in the Execution of her long-cherished Scheme.— Adoption 
of the Ordinance of Secession by that State.— Georgia and the otlier 
Cotton States follow the Lead of South Carolina. — Commendable Ef- 
forts in several of the States of the North to moderate Southern Excite- 
ment and secure the yielding of reasonable Concessions to the slave- 
holding Interests of the South.— Tennessee and the Border States still 
remain firm.— Extraordinary Message of Mr. Buchanan to Congress in 
the Month of December, 1860, and its unhappy Effect upon public Sen- 
timent.— Furious Debate in both Houses of Congress upon the Ques- 
tions pending at this Crisis.— All Efforts at Compromise prove abor- 
tive.— Unwise and unpatriotic Conduct on the Part of Southern Sena- 
tors and Representatives in vacating their Seats in Congress. Page 295 

CHAPTER XVL 

Speculative Views as to the self-defensive Powers of all Governments, 
and of the Government of the United States in particular.— View of 
the Circumstances existing, so far as the State of Tennessee is con- 
cerned, in the Outset of the War, and Vindication of the Conduct of 
that State. — View of the Condition of Things existing in Washington 
in particular, and of the non-action Policy of Mr. Buchanan. — Notice 
of this Gentleman's late Defense of himself — View of Mr. Lincoln's 
moderate and patriotic Conduct after his Election, and Notice of 
Speeches made by him at Indianapolis, Pittsburg, and Philadelphia. — 
Mr. Lincoln's Inaugural Speech, and commendatory Remarks there- 
upon. — Admirably patriotic Speech of Mr. Alexander H. Stephens, of 
Georgia, demonstrating the gross Impolicy of Secession.— Some Allu- 
sions to the early Movements of the War, and a short Discussion of the 
Monroe Doctrine. — Enforcement of that Doctrine the true Means of re- 
storing the national Unity and Concord 318 

CHAPTER XVII. 
Beginning of the War.— Its gross Impolicy.— Mr. Davis and his official 
Associates did not comprehend its true Dimensions. — Mr. Davis's sev- 
oral exultant Speeches after having been made President. — Striking 
Declaration made by the Confederate Secretary of War, Leroy Pope 
Walker, at Montgomery, Alabama. — Mr, Lincoln's View of the phys- 



xii CONTENTS. 

ical Impracticability of Secession. — Philosophic Views of the Effects of 
War in general, and of Civil War in particular. — View of the existing 
Condition of Things as the Result of the late War.— Responsible Attf- 
tude of President Johnson, and Duty of all good Citizens to sustain 
him. — Short Explanation of Author's own Attitude in the beginning 
of the War. — The Confederate Provisional Congress. — Its extraordi- 
nary Harmony and Unanimity, and the Causes thereof. — View of the 
permanent Confederate Congress. — Rapid Review of Mr. Davis's Con- 
duct as Executive Chief.— Peace Efforts in the Confederate Congress. 
— Their signal Failure, and the Causes thereof. — Informal Efforts of 
Author, in Connection with many influential Persons of the South, to 
make Peace in Spite of Mr. Davis, and, if need be, by a Counter-revo- 
lution. — Eailure of those Efforts, and probable Causes therefor. — Au- 
thor asks Passport across the Ocean, which is granted him. — Close of 
the War, and Remarks thereupon Page 335 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
Observations mainly upon the Facts recited in the preceding Chap- 
ters 418 

Conclusion 433 



SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 



CHAPTER I. 

Introductory Eemarks. — Allusion to the "Irrepressible Conflict" Tlieory, 
— Direct Issue made therewith. — Sectionalism. — Its dangerous Tend- 
encies. — Geographical Parties. — Washington's Warning against them. 
— Mr. Webster's Remarks upon Sectionalism. — Author's first Acquaint- 
ance with Mr. Webster in 1825. — Renewal of that Acquaintance twen- 
ty Years thereafter. — Allusions to Mr. Webster's Life and Character. — 
Remarks upon his great Ability as a Statesman and Orator. — His ami- 
able Qualities in private Life. — Mr. Webster's funeral Notice of his great 
Rival, Mr. Calhoun. 

In no community of Christendom can the public mind 
be reasonably supposed, at the present moment, to bo 
prepared to receive with a fitting respect an honest and 
impartial account of all the exciting and lamentable oc- 
currences which have had their progress on this conti- 
nent, and in the bosom of our own country, during the 
last four years. Yarious and conflicting interests, exist- 
ina: to some extent wheresoever commerce is known or 
free intercourse by mail has been provided for, diverse 
and repugnant statements, embodied in massy and im- 
posing volumes, in pointed and glittering editorials, in 
gusty and delusive partisan harangues {the wordy won- 
ders of an liour)^ in solemn, didactic discourses, in labored 
official documents, and in innumerable reports of san- 
guinary battles, of obstinate and long-continued sieges. 



14 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

of the fearful and heartrending devastation of large and 
populous districts, or brilliant and sudden assaults and 
captures upon land or water, and fierce marauding in- 
cursions — a necessary concomitant of war, and yet how 
shocking and deplorable — have awakened and diffused 
such clashing and intensely -cherished prejudices and pre- 
dilections as naught would be of power to remove, save, 
perchance, the toilsome diligence of such discriminating 
writers as some future age may supply, and the ever 
softening and effacing influence of Time. If this be true 
in regard even to distant nations, how much more forci- 
bly must the statement just made be found applicable to 
the different parts of our own country, within whose ter- 
ritorial limits all these momentous events have been tak- 
ing place, and where all the multiplied sources of error 
referred to have had their original location. But, even 
were tho*se who are now upon the stage of action, in our 
own and in other lands, ever so ready to receive the truth 
in relation to occurrences so irritating and so recent, there 
would seem to be but little reason to expect that a suita- 
ble writer would be found to record, in language worthy 
of general credence and respect, scenes which the powers 
of a Livy or a Tacitus would have been scarcely able to 
depicture, and of a nature well calculated to discompose 
even the philosophic serenity of a Gibbon or a Hume. 
With such views as these, and with no exorbitant con- 
ception of my own ability as a writer, it will not be held 
surprising that I have chosen to indicate in advance, by 
the title which I have thought proper to prefix to this 
work, that I do not at airaspire to be recognized as the 
Historian of the most momentous conflict of arms, viewed 



AUTHpR NO SECTIONALIST. 15 

in its various aspects and bearings, that the world has 
yet known. In truth, I shall aim only to present, in as 
simple and perspicuous language as possible, a series of 
remarkable occurrences, running through a period of 
some twenty years or more, accompanied by sober and 
impartial delineations of character, and personal anec- 
dotes, more or less illustrative of public events, with 
some account of the rival movements of parties, and the 
characteristic acts and utterances of acknowledged party 
leaders. Having, at a period in my past life not yet re- 
mote, be-en thrown into contact, in the councils of the 
nation, with a large number of our public men of great 
distinction and influence, and having held relations more 
or less familiar with a few of the most eminent among 
them, I am not without a hope of being able to revive 
some gratifying and instructive reminiscences of illustri- 
ous personages now no longer living, as well as of others 
yet fortunately surviving, which will not prove altogeth- 
er uninteresting to such as may glance over these pages. 
It having been my fortune, though born in a Southern 
state, to have resided for considerable periods in both the 
great sections of our now reconciled country^ and having 
contracted the most delicate and endearing ties, both so- 
cial and domestic, in each of them, I dare to presume that, 
in the execution of the task which I have assumed, I shall 
be able, in a great degree, if not altogether, to avoid the 
exhibition of any thing like a decided local bias. I shall 
at once give notice that I do not by any means agree in 
opinion with those who assert that the gigantic military 
struggle from wliich. we have but just emerged was, to 
any considerable extent, the result of what has-been so 



16 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

vociferously bruited as an "irrepressible conflict of an- 
tagonisms imbedded in the very nature of our hetero- 
geneous institutions ;" and, with all proper courtesy and 
deference, I shall venture to make direct issue with those, 
wheresoever they shall be found, who undertake to pro- 
mulgate the notion that "the successive compromises 
whereby" civil war, with all its attendant horrors, " was 
so long put off," were, after all, but "deplorable mistakes, 
detrimental to our national character."* I shall, on the 
contrary, endea^vor to maintain, more by an array of irre- 
sistible facts than by any effort of over-subtle reasoning, 
or by ingenious appeals to long-standing prejudices, that 
the fearful domestic troubles in which our noble republic 
has been so recently involved could not possibly have 
arisen but for the most unskillful and blundering man- 
agement of men in power — the incessant agitation of sec- 
tional factionists, both in the I^orth and in the South, and 
the unwise disregard of that august spirit of conciliation 
and compromise in which our complex frame of govern- 
ment is known to have had its origin, and to the faithful 
cultivation of which, if it be destined to endure for future 
ages, it must undoubtedly owe both its preservation and 
its maintenance. 

Without in the least degree calling in question the pa- 
triotism or sincerity of others, I may be permitted to say 
that no dogma more fraught with mischief could possibly 
have been set afloat among the American people, or one 
better calculated, if widely diffused, to undermine the sa- 
cred compact of union established by our fathers, than 
that which has just been alluded to. Let two considera- 

* Extract from Mr. Greeley's "American Conflict." 



IRREPEESSIBLE CONFLICT. 17 

ble segments or classes of a free and enlightened people 
any where be once induced conscientiously to believe 
that such an irremovable incompatibility of essential in- 
terests exists between them that the permanent repose 
and happiness of the whole, or of certain of its parts, will 
be impossible^ except by a great and fearful sacrifice on 
the one side or on the other, and it is most obvious that 
exciting thoughts and schemes of separation^ and even of 
armed collision, would not be very long in making them- 
selves manifest. Such, in fact, is known to have been 
the precise condition of things in the early days of the 
Eoman republic, between the Patricians and the Plebe- 
ians ; and hence certain noted attempts on the part of the 
weaker class in Eome, and the one which deemed itself 
oppressed, to provide security against future injuries by 
secession to Mons Sacer. So it was also with the people 
of the American colonies in the last century, when, be- 
coming convinced that it was not at all consistent with 
their safety and happiness that they should remain longer 
under British rule, they boldly erected the all-inspiring 
standard of independence. The successful propagation 
of this theory of an "irrepressible conflict" of hostile 
forces, in two different sections of the same country, it is 
evident, must generate ^^ geographiccd parties f against the 
formation of which, Washington, in his Farewell Address, 
so solemnly and so pathetically warned his countrymen. 
The continued existence of these geographical parties, 
when once fairly organized, as our melancholy experi- 
ence has now demonstrated, must naturally beget schemes 
of territorial partition; which, however peacefully and 
quietly put in execution, if resisted on the part of those 



18 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

who shall chance to feel that they would be deeply in- 
jured thereby, more especially if the latter party shall 
suppose itself to possess adequate means of preventions 
must inevitably lead to a civil war, more or less serious 
and protracted. And it is plain that the danger of such a 
result must be very greatly increased, if, in addition to 
the influences described, the opinion should be given 
currency that the antagonisyn asserted to exist is organic 
and permanent in its character, not growing out of inter- 
ests superficial and temporary in their nature, and there- 
fore subject to easy processes of modification and amelio- 
ration in one mode or another, but solid, enduring, and 
"imbedded in the very nature" of ^H7istiiutions^'' thus sol-- 
emnly adjudged to be '•''heterogeneous.'''' Washington and 
his illustrious associates of a former age taught no such 
perilous and visionary doctrine ; nor did the great states- 
men who succeeded them in the administration of the 
government for several successive generations at all sus- 
pect the existence of any such fatal tendency to discord 
and domestic feud to be lurking in the very vitals of our 
civil system. I am not prepared to assert that this "ir- 
repressible conflict" theory originated either in the North 
or in the South exclusively. I know that a distinguished 
citizen of the State of New York has been given credit 
for the first formal promulgation of it ; and recent occur- 
rences would seem to indicate that this gentleman still 
firmly adheres to his well-known declaration on this sub- 
ject. Certain it is, though, that I have heard this same 
radical incompatibility of interests between the Northern 
and Southern states of the Union — between that portion 
of the republic recognized until recently as the slave- 



JOHN C. CALHOUN. 19 

holding one, and that which was non-slaveholding in. its 
character — as earnestly urged, and as elaborately insisted 
upon also by certain well-known sectional politicians 
south of Mason and Dixon's line, as it ever could have 
been by individuals of the most extreme opinions on this 
subject to the north of that same mystical parallel of lat- 
itude. I only assert what I know to be true when I state 
that, for several years antecedent to his death, John C. 
Calhoun, one of the most intellectual and pure-minded 
men that has ever lived, habitually gave expression 
among his friends to the opinion (which there is no 
doubt he most conscientiously entertained) that the slave- 
holdinsj states of the South and the free states of the 
North would never be able again to live in harmony 
with each other after the abolition agitation had been for 
several years in progress, and that the former would 
soon find it indispensable to the preservation of their own 
domestic peace and safety to resort to the expedient of 
separation. Early in the eventful year of 1850 he avow- 
ed to me and to certain others, some of whom are yet 
living, his own painful and firmly-riveted conviction on 
this subject, and declared, in language of extraordinary 
emphasis, that he regarded a peaceful withdrawal from 
the Union as altogether practicable, provided its execu- 
tion should be attempted under the lead of Maryland and 
Virginia ; making known at the same time that he had 
already drawn out a Constitution for the new republic 
which he contemplated, in which the slaveholding prin- 
ciple had been given a predominant influence. Once, 
while discussing this interesting matter, he grew more 
enthusiastic than I ever saw him on any other occasion, 



.20 SCYLLA AND CHARYiBDIS, 

and exclaimed in language something like the following : 
"In looking back upon the history of past ages, I have 
sometimes been disposed to envy the glory of such men 
as Brutus, and Cato, and others ; but if this project of 
peaceful separation can be accomplished, and my new 
Constitution shall be adopted by the people of the South, 
I shall feel that I too will have done something, in my 
own day and generation, to deserve the gratitude and 
veneration of the friends to a well-ordered system of con- 
federative freedom." 

The truth is, that between sectional factionists of the 
North and of the South, however conscientious many of 
them doubtless have been in the views supported by 
them, and in the measures from time to time by them 
propounded, there was oftentimes to be discerned a most 
singular and striking exhibition of similitude in regard 
both to general theories of government, and in reference 
to their action, in and out of Congress, upon several of 
the most exciting questions which have ever disturbed 
the public repose. Special evidences in proof of what 
has now been asserted will be hereafter adduced. I pro- 
pose at present to bring forward what all America will, 
I fancy, deem as high an authority as could well be cited. 
The following memorable words were uttered in my 
hearing in the national Senate in the month of July, 
1850, when the celebrated measures of compromise were 
under discussion in that body, by one of the wisest and 
most patriotic statesmen, as well as one of the most con- 
summate orators that the world has known ; whose pro- 
found and salutary counsels, had they been since that 
period faithfully observed by those for whose benefit he 



MR. WEBSTER. 21 

then spoke, would have infallibly saved our country 
from all those scenes of unfraternal strife, and fierce, san- 
guinary conflict, to avert which was the most cherished 
wish of his whole long and useful public life. Mr. Web- 
ster, upon the occasion referred to, said : 

" Sir, this measure is opposed by the North, or some 
of the North, and by the South, or some of the South ; 
and it has the remarkable misfortune to encounter resist- 
ance by persons the most directly opposed to each other 
in every matter connected with the subject under consid- 
eration. There are those (I do not speak, of course, of 
members of Congress, and I do not desire to be under- 
stood as making any alkifeion whatever, in what I may 
say, to members of this House or of the other), there are 
those in the country who say, on the part of the South, 
that the South by this bill gives up every thing to the 
North, and that they will fight it to the last ; and there 
are those, on the part of the North, who say that this bill 
gives up every thing to the South, and that they will 
fight it to the last. And really, sir, strange as it may 
seem, this disposition to make battle upon the bill hj 
those who never agreed in any thing before under the 
light of heaven, has created a sort of fellowship and good 
feeling between them. One says. Give me your hand, 
my good fellow ; you mean to go against this bill to the 
death, because it gives up the rights of the South. I 
mean to go against the bill to the death, because it gives 
up the rights of the North ; let us shake hands, and cry 
out, 'Down with the bill!' and then unitedly raise the 
shout, 

y J " ' A day, an hour of virtuoixs liberty, 

Is worth a whole eternity in bondage !' 



22 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

such is the consistency of the opposition to this meas- 
ure." 

Having thus incidentally alluded to Mr. Webster, I 
shall seize the opportunity of expressing frankly my own 
opinion of this remarkable personage, together with a few 
of the considerations upon which this opinion is bottom- 
ed. It will fall within the scope and compass of this 
volume to make frequent references to this truly con- 
servative and patriotic statesman; in consideration of 
which fact, and by reason of the additional fact that one 
of the most gifted of his numerous admiring friends* has, 
some years ago, published an analysis of Mr. Webster's 
life and character, more masterly, perhaps, than any oth- 
er production of that class which the present age has pro- 
duced, I shall confine myself at present to a very brief 
statement of my own recollections of a man who has filled 
the world with his fame, and the glories connected with 
whose public career are as imperishable even as those 
solid granite hills of New England, amid which he came 
into existence, and in sight of which it was his fortune to 
be afterward nurtured in all the arts of true greatness. 
I saw Mr. Webster for the first time in the summer of 
1825, while he was sojourning for a few days at the cele- 
brated Saratoga Springs, on his way to the Falls of Niag- 
ara, which stupendous wonder of Nature he was then 
about to visit for the first time, and in company with his 
esteemed and life -long friend Justice Story. An ac- 
quaintance of mine, Colonel White, then a representative 
in Congress from Florida, did me the honor of presenting 
me to Mr. Webster a few days after the publication, in 

* Mr. Choate. 



author's first meeting with MR. WEBSTER. 23 

pamphlet form, of the first of his Bunker Hill orations ; 
which masterly and thrilling oration I had just read with 
weeping eyes and soul on fire. Never shall I cease to 
remember, and with a pleasure not unmixed with vener- 
ation, the impression then made upon my youthful and 
untutored sensibilities by the solemn and imposing as- 
pect, the grave yet courteous demeanor, and the simple, 
cordial, and unassuming conversational tone and manner 
of this extraordinary individual. After reading the mar- 
velous speech to which I have alluded, on being thus 
ushered into the august presence of him by whom that 
speech had been delivered, and after listening with fixed 
and silent admiration to his noble colloquial utterances, 
I could scarcely feel surprised that his fellow-citizens of 
Boston had named him "the God-like;" and I am not 
at all ashamed to confess that I do, even at the present 
moment, hold Daniel Webster to have been far better 
entitled-to this swelling appellation than was the famed 
Pericles of old to that of "the Olympian," which his im- 
aginative countrymen are known to have bestowed on 
him. Years rolled away before I again saw Mr. Web- 
ster, and was able to renew my former personal acquaint- 
ance with him. Meanwhile, his renown, both as a states- 
man and orator, had greatly extended. He had success- 
fully contended for mastery with the ablest forensic rea- 
soners that had ever graced the bar of the highest judi- 
cial tribunal of the country ; he had delivered numerous 
grand and instructive popular discourses, which Cicero, 
of all the ancients, might alone perchance have been able 
to equal, and which neither Burke, nor Bossuet, nor Fish- 
er Ames, nor Massillon could have been expected to sur- 



24 'SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

pass; and he had met in exciting and stormy debate 
some of the most consummate parliamentary speakers 
that the country had produced upon questions involving 
alike the fundamental principles of all government, and 
the varied and conflicting interests of our own growing 
republic. In all these contests, the world had given him 
credit for displaying the highest oratorical powers, deep 
and far-reaching views, and a knowledge of all that apper- 
tains to the affairs of a free and self-governing people, of 
which few if any of his contemporaries had ever shown 
themselves to be possessed. After meeting with Mr. 
Webster in the Senate, I had the good fortune to be as- 
sociated with him on the Committee of Foreign Affairs 
of that body, and to act as chairman of the same commit- 
tee while he was Secretary of State during Mr. Fillmore's 
administration, and I thus enjoyed an opportunity of be- 
coming somewhat familiar with the particular views 
which he entertained touching the great international 
questions of the age. I saw much of him also at his own 
liospitable mansion, as well as in social life elsewhere, and 
I am now prepared to declare that he was, in my judg- 
ment, one of the few public men whom it has been my 
fortune to know who did not suffer some loss of dignity 
upon a near personal approach. In all my intercourse 
with him, I beheld constant and ever-increasing evi- 
dences of the purity and elevation of his sentiments, his 
steady devotion to principle, his lofty disinterestedness of 
motive, his kind and charitable temper, and his entire ex- 
emption from every thing like low personal rivalry. I 
am quite certain that he never cherished feelings of ran- 
corous malevolence toward any human being in his life ; 



MR. WEBSTER'S CHARACTER. 25 

and it is quite remarkable, that I never heard from his 
lips a single unkind allusion to any of those whom he 
might naturally regard as, in some degree, his competitors 
for political advancement. After the moment of heated 
conflict had once passed by, he seemed always both to 
forgive and to forget all the irritating collisions which 
had occurred. In proof of the exceeding kindness and 
magnanimity of his nature, I will cite a single evidence, 
but one that shall be conclusive. Mr. Calhoun w^as, of all 
the eminent statesmen who were in public life at the 
same time with Mr. "Webster, and who were occasionally 
thrown into serious and painful conflict with him, un- 
doubtedly the most potential. These gigantic champions 
of opposite and hostile political creeds were, in truth, for 
a long period the veritable Achilles and Hector of the 
Senate ; yet, upon the sudden decease of Mr. Calhoun in 
the summer of 1850, behold what his truly high-minded 
and chivalrous opponent said of him ! JSTo knight of 
the Middle Ages, not Sir Philip Sydney himself, nor the' 
world - renowned Bayard, nor even the famous Black 
Prince, when holding King John of France as a prisoner 
of war, could have been expected to display a more high- 
bred courtesy, a more manly and tender sympathy to- 
ward a former adversary, or a more generous oblivion of 
former contentions in arms, than is evinced by Mr. Web- 
ster in the following beautiful effusion. Let the puny 
and heartless traducers of entombed greatness, whom our 
own unfortunate times have temporarily brought into 
notice, read the funeral eulogy pronounced by this august 
son of New England on the occasion referred to, and 
blush, if indeed the sense of shame has not become en- 

B 



26 - SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

tirelv extinct in their cold and icy bosoms, over the con- 
sciousness of their own deep and ineffaceable dishonor. 

"I hope the Senate will indulge me in adding a very 
few words to what has been said. My apology for this 
presumption is the very long acquaintance which has 
subsisted between Mr. Calhoun and myself. We were 
of the same age. I made my first entrance into the 
House of Eepresentatives in May, 1813. I there found 
Mr. Calhoun. He had already been a member of that 
body two or three years. I found Mm there an active 
and efiacient member of the House, taking a decided part 
and exercising a decided influence in all its deliberations. 
From that day to the day of his death, amid all the strifes 
of party and politics, there has subsisted between us al- 
ways and without interruption, a great degree of person- 
al kindness. 

"Differing widely on many great questions respecting 
our institutions and the government of the country, those 
'differences never interrupted our personal and social in- 
tercourse. I have been present at most of the distin- 
guished instances of the exhibition of his talents in de- 
bate. I have always heard him with pleasure, often with 
much instruction, not unfrequently with the highest de- 
gree of admiration. 

" Mr. Calhoun was calculated to be a leader in whatso- 
ever association of political friends he was thrown. He 
was a man of undoubted genius and of commanding tal- 
ent. All the country and all the world admit that. His 
mind was both perceptive and vigorous; it was clear, 
quick, and strong. 

" Sir, the eloquence of Mr. Calhoun, or the manner in 



Webster's eulogy on calhoun. 27 

wliicli lie exhibited his sentiments in public bodies, was 
part of his intellectual character ; it grew out of the qual- 
ities of his mind ; it was plain, strong, terse, condensed 
concise ; sometimes impassioned, still always severe. Ee- 
jecting ornament, not often seeking far for illustration, 
his power consisted in the plainness of his propositions, 
in the closeness of his logic, and in the earnestness and 
energy of his manner. These are the qualities, as I think, 
which have enabled him, through such a long course of 
years, to speak often, and yet always command attention. 
His demeanor as a senator is known to us all — is appre- 
ciated, venerated by us all. No man was more respect- 
ful to others, no man carried himself with greater deco- 
rum, no man with superior dignity. I think there is not 
one of us, when he last addressed us from his seat in the 
Senate, his form still erect, with a voice by no means in- 
dicating such a degree of physical weakness as did in fact 
possess him, with clear tones, and an impressive and, I 
may say, an imposing manner, who did not feel that he 
might imagine that we saw before us a senator of Rome 
survived. 

" Sir, I have not, in public nor in private life, known a 
more assiduous person in the discharge of his duties. I 
have known no man who wasted less of life in what is 
called recreation, or employed less of it in any pursuits 
not connected with the immediate discharge of his duty. 
He seemed to have no recreation, but the pleasure of con- 
versation with his friends. Out of the chambers of Con- 
gress, he was either devoting himself to the acquisition 
of knowledge pertaining to the immediate subject of the 
duty before him, or else he was indulging in those social 
interviews in which he so much delighted. 



28 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

"Mj honorable friend from Kentucky (Mr. Clay) has 
spoken in just terms of his colloquial talents. They cer- 
tainly were singular and eminent. There was a charm 
m his conversation not often equaled. He delighted es- 
pecially.in conversation and intercourse with young men. 
I suppose that there has been no man among us who had 
more winning manners, in such an intercourse and such 
conversation, with men comparatively young, than Mr. 
Calhoun. I believe one great power of his character, in 
general, was his conversational talent. I believe it is 
that, as well as a consciousness of his high integrity, and 
the greatest reverence for his talents and ability, that has 
made him so endeared an object to the people of the 
state to which he belonged. 

''Mr. President, he had the basis, the indispensable ba- 
sis, of all high character, and that was unspotted integrity 
and unimpeached honor. If he had aspirations, they were 
high, and honorable, and noble. There" was nothing grov- 
eling, or low, or meanly selfish, that came near the head 
or the heart of Mr. Calhoun. Firm in his purpose, per- 
fectly patriotic and honest, as I am sure he was, in the 
principles that he espoused and in the measures that he 
defended, aside from that large regard for the species of 
distinction that conducted him to eminent stations for the 
benefit of the republic, I do not believe he had a selfish 
motive or selfish feeling. However he may have differed 
from others of us in his political opinions or his political 
principles, those principles and those opinions will now 
descend to posterity under the sanction of a great name. 
He has lived long enough, he has done enough, and he 
has done it so well, so successfully, so honorably, as to 



CALHOUN — HIS NOELE QUALITIES. 29 

connect himself for all time with the records of his coun- 
try. He is now an historical character. Those of us 
who have known him here will find that he has left upon 
our minds and our hearts a strong and lasting impression 
of his person, his character, and his public performances, 
which, while we live, will never be obliterated. We shall 
hereafter, I am sure, indulge in it as a grateful recollec- 
tion, that we have lived in his age, that we have been his 
contemporaries, that we have seen him, and heard him, 
and known him. We shall delight to speak of him to 
those who are rising up to fill our places. And when 
the time shall come that we ourselves must go, one after 
another, to our graves, we shall carry with *us a deep 
sense of his genius and character, his honor and integrity, 
his amiable deportment in private life, and the purity of 
his exalted patriotism,'' 



30 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 



CHAPTER 11. 

Early colonial Settlements in North America. — Character of the People 
very nearly identical. — Similitude of Customs, Language, Religion, 
Laws, and Mode of Life. — No Conflict of Sentiment then between the 
Colonists of the North and South in regard to African Slavery. — Tes^ 
timony of Mr. Greeley on this Point. — Kindly social and commercial 
Intercourse between the Colonists North and South. — Their united 
Defense of the infant American Settlements against Indian Violence 
and the hostile French. — Early Suggestion of a confederate Union be- 
tween all the British Colonies in North America. — Strange Interpreta- 
tion of a Portion of the Language of the Declaration of Independence. 
— Mr. Jcfferscc's important Statement as to the Action of the Confed- 
erate Congress in regard to Slavery at the Time the Declaration was 
adopted. — Mr Webster's important Recital of historic Facts connected 
with this Subject in his 7th of JNIarch Speech. 

Those who are best acquainted with the early history 
of our forefathers upon the American Continent will be 
most inclined to concur m the opinion that, though the 
various colonial settlements effected by them were made 
under circumstances which upon a superficial view might 
be regarded as materially different, and though the course 
of historic events in these settlements was not uniformly 
similar, yet that, in regard to all those influences which 
were to impart a distinctive character to infant communi- 
ties, there were no such radical diversities as, to a philo- 
sophic mind, would have been l:i,eld worthy, in the least 
degree, of grave and thoughtful consideration. In all the 
■colonies the same language predominated. In all of them 
the same religion prevailed, and in most of them the same 



EARLY AMERICAN COLONISTS. 81 

form of that religion. The same literature was in all of 
them the source of intellectual cultivation and of refine- 
ment in manners. In all of them it was necessary to 
employ the same means of warding off the violence of 
the savager tribes who encompassed them ; of felling and 
displacing the great trees which overshadowed the sur- 
face of the wilderness in which their primeval huts were 
established, and of reducing the virgin soil to a state fit- 
ted for profitable culture. The growth of the various 
colonies, whether by natural increase or by immigration 
from abroad, was for many years nearly the same. The 
social usages and customs which sprang up in the differ- 
ent settlements were, from the operation of similar causes, 
very nearly identical. Even in their relations with the 
mother country the same resemblances were apparent; 
in all of them the imperial power of the British govern- 
ment was, in somewhat varying forms, very distinctly 
acknowledged, and enforced, also, with a marked uni- 
formity. At different periods while the colonial condi- 
tion continued, the same collisions with the authority of 
the parent country occurred, and with substantially simi- 
lar results. Even in relation to a matter which some as- 
sert to have supplied grounds for an essential discrimina- 
tion among the residents of the different colonies — to wit, 
the introduction of slaves from Africa^ it will be found, on 
examination, that many of those who have most freely 
written and spoken upon this subject have been guided 
far more by fanciful conjectures, put in action by an eager 
desire of sectional ascendency, than by a proper and be- 
coming regard for the deductions of sober historic truth. 
Without dwelling on a subject the prominent topics con- 



82 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

nected with wliicli have been already thoroughly ex- 
hausted by innumerable disputants, most of whom are 
too furious to be fair, and foo much interested to be hon- 
est, I shall content myself with quoting a pregnant para- 
graph from a work of great respectability, which has re- 
cently issued from the press, and with the author of 
which I shall be always glad to agree when I shall be 
able to do so without disparagement to my own consci- 
entious convictions. Mr. Greeley, in " The American Con- 
flicts^'' expresses himself thus : "The austere morality and 
democratic spirit of the Puritans ought to have kept their 
skirts clear from the stain of human bondage. But, be- 
neath all their fierce antagonism, there was a certain kin- 
ship between the disciples of Calvin and those of Loyola. 
Each were ready to suffer and die for God's truth as they 
understood it, and neither cherished any appreciable sym- 
pathy or consideration for those they esteemed God's ene- 
mies, in which category the savages of America and the 
heathen negroes of Africa were so unlucky as to be found. 
The Puritan pioneers of New England were early involved 
in desperate life or death struggles with their aboriginal 
neighbors, in whom they failed to discover those poetic 
and fascinating traits which irradiate them in the novels 
of Cooper and the poems of Longfellow. Their experi- 
ence of Indian ferocity and treachery, acting upon their 
theologic convictions, led them early and readily to the 
belief thtit these savages, and, by logical inference, all 
savages, were children of the devil, to be subjugated, if 
not extirpated, as the Philistine inhabitants of Canaan 
had been by the Israelites under Joshua. Indian slav- 
ery, sometimes forbidden by law, but usually tolerated, 



MR. GREELEY'S CONFESSION. 33 

if not entirely approved by public opinion, was amono- 
the early usages of 'New England ; and from tliis to ne- 
gro slavery — ^the slavery of any variety of pagan barbar- 
isms — was an easy transition. That the slaves in the 
Eastern colonies were few, and mainly confined to the 
sea-ports, does not disprove this statement. The harsh 
climate, the rocky soil, the rugged topography of New 
England, presented formidable, though not impassable 
barriers to slaveholding. Her narrow patches of arable 
soil, hemmed in between bogs and naked blocks of gran- 
ite, were poorly adapted to cultivation by slaves. The 
labor of the hands without the brain, of muscle divorced 
from intelligence, would procure but a scanty livelihood 
on those bleak hills. He who was compelled for a sub- 
sistence to be by turns farmer, mechanic, lumberman, 
navigator, and fisherman, might possibly support one 
slave, but would be utterly ruined by half a dozen. 
Slaveholding in the Northern States was rather coveted 
as a social distinction, a badge of aristocracy and wealth, 
than resorted to with any idea of profit or pecuniary ad- 
vantage." 

Under such circumstances as have been stated, it is 
certainly not at all surprising that constant friendly in- 
tercourse, both social and commercial, was cultivated be- 
tween the various American colonies, whether in the 
northern or southern divisions of the continent ; that 
they should have cordially aided each other in repulsion 
of Indian hostilities ; that, under the advice and protec- 
tion of the parent country, they should have sturdily co- 
operated in the defense of all colonial territory against 
invasions from abroad, and in even attempting the con- 

B2 



34 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

quest of adjoining territory belonging to France, in what 
is now known as Canada, at the period when the kings 
of France and of Great Britain were warring for exclu- 
sive dominion on this continent. JSTor should we be as- 
tonished, either, to find that, long before the Declaration 
of American Independence in the year 1776, there should 
have been more than one attempt to bring about a con- 
federation of the American colonies under the protection 
of the British crown. 

It is sufficiently apparent, one would think, that, up to 
the era of our deliverance from British rule, no fancied 
heterogeneousness of institutions, or fixed repugnances 
of opinion or sentiment, seriously divided those whose 
posterity were destined soon to form a still closer com- 
pact of union, and, by the common dangers and suffer- 
ings of a long and sanguinary war, to become endeared 
to each other by ties of the most solid and enduring char- 
acter. Such is the unconquerable truth of history, let 
him deny it who may. 

It has been contended by some, of late, that the Decla- 
ration of Independence itself asserted a fundamental prin- 
ciple of universal application even at the time of its adop- 
tion, which was understood by our forefathers as drawing 
a serious line of distinction between those citizens of the 
newly-formed American Union who were then friendly 
to the continued existence of African slavery, and those 
who were unfriendly to it ; and as the greater part of the 
former have been constantly located in the states of the 
South, it has been sagely inferred that a permanent con- 
flict of sentiment between slaveholders and non-slave- 
holders was thus recognized from the beginning, and 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 35 

among those who had just declared themselves one peo- 
]jle, both in peace and in luar. Persons who undertake to 
make good this position assume that, when the authors 
of the Declaration of Independence declared "all men are 
created equal," they meant to include the sons of Africa 
as well as those of European origin ; and these contro- 
versialists do thus contend, in the face of the undeniable 
fact, that no such interpretation of the instrument was 
either suggested or thought of any where in Christendom 
until within a few years past; and notwithstanding the 
facts that the efforts of the Emancipationists were not, 
until very recently, professedly founded upon any such 
overstrained view ; that language substantially similar is 
used in the Virginia Bill of Eights, penned by the cel- 
ebrated George Mason, one of the most open and strenu- 
ous supporters of slavery who participated in the forma- 
tion of the Federal Constitution ; and that Mr. Jefferson 
himself, the acknowledged draughtsman of the Declara- 
tion of Independence, though friendly to the adoption of 
a system of gradual emancipation, never in any way indi- 
cated that the universal freedom spoken of was absolute- 
ly provided for in this important document, or that such 
a thing was even thought of or suggested. The truth is, 
that Mr. Jefferson, in his works, p. 170, vol. i., asserts the 
fact that there were persons in Congress at the time, both 
from the North and from the South, who were not only 
not hostile to the continuation of African slavery as then 
existing, but who were unwilling to embody in the Dec- 
laration any language strongly denunciatory even of the 
continued importation of slaves from the coast of Africa; 
his words on this point being as follows: " The clause, too, 



1^ 



36 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa was 
struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia^ 
who never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, 
and who, on the contrary, still wished to continue it. Our 
Northern brethren also, I believe, felt a little tender under 
those censures ; for, though their people had few slaves 
themselves, yet they had been pretty considerable carriers 
of them to others." 

The conclusion to which the mind is irresistibly driven 
by the mass of evidence adduced is, that the American 
people, at this early period of their history, were in all re- 
spects sufiiciently liomogeneous^ both in regard to local in- 
terests and in relation to all questions likely to arise un- 
der any common government which they might choose 
thereafter to establish, as to justify a reasonable hope of 
reciprocal kindness and permanent concord between them. 
So far is it, indeed, from being true that any such "an- 
tagonisms imbedded in the very nature of our hetero- 
geneous institutions'^ then existed, as the accomplished au- 
thor of " The American Conflict" has so emphatically as- 
serted, that it may be safely affirmed that, strictly speak- 
ing, African slavery did not any where at that period ex- 
ist in an institutional form; in relation to which point I 
shall again cite "the language of one who will ever be re- 
garded as the highest authority, in reference to a question 
of this nature, by all men whose minds are not altogether 
given up to sectional prejudice or party bigotry. Mr. 
Webster, in his speech delivered in the national Senate 
in the year 1848, "upon the "exclusion of slavery 
FROM THE TERRITORIES," uses the following language: 
" The Constitution of the United States recognizes it 



1776-1789. 87 

(slavery) as an existing fact, an existing relation between 
the inhabitants of the Southern States. I do not call it 
an institution^ because that term is not applicable to it ; 
for that term seems to imply a voluntary establishment. 
When I first came here, it was a matter of frequent re- 
proach to England, the mother country, that slavery had 
been established upon the colonies by her against their 
consent, and that which is now considered a cherished 
institution was then regarded as, I will not say an evil^ 
but an entailment on the colonies by the policy of the 
mother country against their luishesJ'' 

The state of public sentiment in regard to slavery in 
the colonies remained the same throughout the war of 
the Ke volution. With a few exceptions here and there, 
there were none in the South who were anxious to extend 
its existence and influence, and there were as few in the 
North who were inclined to interfere with or complain 
of its presence wheresoever it had already taken root ; so 
that, when the men of '76 began to take measures for 
their future safety in the separate and independent con- 
dition which they had deemed it wise to assume, they 
were prepared, with the fullest deliberation, to adopt ar- 
ticles of confederation which in terms provided for the 
establishment of a " perpetual Union" between those who 
had then become fraternally associated in the war against 
the mother country. Nor is it apparent that there was 
any material change in the feelings and opinions of any 
portion of the people of the United States in regard to 
African Slavery up to the year 1789, when the Federal 
Constitution was adopted. In proof of this fact, I shall 
again lean upon the authority of Mr. Webster, whose ac- 



38 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

curacy in relation to all matters of this kind is so well 
established that I am not aware that any deliberately ut- 
tered statement of his touching points of disputed Amer- 
ican history has ever been by any one directly called in 
question. In that memorable 7th of March speech which 
he dehvered in the Senate of the United States for " the 
Constitution and the Union," and which, at the time of 
its being pronounced, as I well recollect, awakened sen- 
timents of respect and gratitude among conservative and 
enlightened patriots throughout the length and breadth 
of the republic — in that speech, for the delivery of which 
Mr. Calhoun is known, on his dying bed, to have thanked 
him in the most solemn and formal manner — Mr. Web- 
ster thus explicitly covers the ground which I am at 
present discussing : " Let us, therefore, consider for a mo- 
ment what was the state of sentiment North and South 
in regard to slavery at the time this Constitution was 
adopted. A remarkable change has taken place since ; 
but what did the wise and great men of all parts of the 
country think of slavery tlienf In what estimation did 
they hold it at the time when this Constitution was adopt- 
ed ? It will be found, sir, if we will carry ourselves by 
historical research back to that day, and ascertain men's 
opinions by authentic records still existing among us, 
that there was then no diversity of opinion between the 
North and the South upon the subject of slavery. It 
will be found that both parts of the country held it equal- 
ly an evil — a moral and political evil. It will not be 
found that, either at the North or at the South, there was 
much, though there was some, invective against slavery 
as inhuman and cruel. The great ground of objection to 



MR. WEBSTER ON THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT. 39 

it was 2^olitical ; that it weakened the social fabric; that 
taking the place of free labor, society became less strong 
and labor less productive ; and therefore we find from all 
the eminent men of the time the -clearest expression of 
their opinion that slavery is an evil. They ascribed its 
existence here, not without truth, and not without some 
acerbity of temper and force of language, to the injurious 
policy of the mother country, who, to favor the naviga- 
tor, had entailed these evils upon the colonies. I need 
hardly refer, sir, particularly to the publications of the 
day. They are matters of history on the record. The 
eminent men, the most eminent men, and nearly all the 
conspicuous politicians of the South, held the same senti- 
ments — that slavery was an evil, a blight, a scourge, and 
a curse. There are no terms of reprobation of slavery 
so vehement in the North at that day as in the South. 
The North was not so much excited against it as the 
South ; and the reason is, I suppose, that there was much 
less of it at the North, and the people did not see, or 
think they saw, the evils so prominently as they were 
seen, or thought to be seen, at the South." 



40 SCYLLA AND CHAllYBDIS. 



CHAPTER III. 

Continuation of the same Subject.— Cession of Northwestern Territory by 
Virginia and other States in 1784.— Ordinance of 1787.— Federal Con- 
vention. — Correlative and contemporaneous Action of that Body and 
of the Confederate Congress upon the Subject of African Slavery.— No 
Conflict worth mentioning then existed between the States of the North 
and the South in regard to African Slavery.— Action of Congress upon 
Abolition Petitions in 1790.— Congressional Resolution on the Subject 
of non-interference with Slavery in the States by the general Govern- 
ment for many Years faithfully observed in the North.— Mr. Webster's 
uncontradicted Statement on this Subject in the Debate between Mr. 
Hayne and himself. — Washington's Administration. — Election of John 
Adams ; his stormy Administration.— Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison, 
and Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, '9.— Nullification and 
Secession growing out of these.— John C. Calhoun.— Confederate Con- 
stitution professedly based upon the absolute Sovereignty of the States. 
—This Principle shamefully abandoned by the Confederate Government 
itself.— Successive Administrations of Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Madison, and 
Mr. Monroe.— Rise of the Missouri Question, and violent Agitation con- 
sequent thereupon. — Wise and salutary Compromise of that Question. 
— Remarks upon the Value of legislative Compromises in general, with 
Mr. Calhoun's Views of the same. 

There are one or two remarkable facts in addition to 
be brought forward in support of this view of the sub- 
ject, which I will now concisely state. 

In the year 1784, Yirginia and other states ceded to 
the United States all the territory northwest of the Ohio 
Eiver. In the year 1787, the celebrated ordinance was 
adopted in the Congress then holding its session in the 
city of New York, by which slavery was forever excluded 



ORDINANCE OF 1787. 41. 

from the whole of that vast dommion. At the very mo- 
ment of its adoption, the Federal Convention, sitting at 
the time in Philadelphia, was engaged in the considera- 
tion of the subject of slavery in its various aspects. Con- 
stant intercourse, by mail and otherwise, was going on 
between these two great commercial marts. Some of the 
most eminent members of Congress were likewise mem- 
bers of the Convention, and were of course sometimes en- 
gaged in the deliberations of one of these bodies, and 
sometimes in those of the other. The ordinance was 
unanimously adopted, every Southern member present 
and every Northern member voting for it. With such 
facts staring us in the face, surely he would be a bold 
man, and far more bold than discreet, who would assert 
that at this memorable period in American annals any 
serious antagonism^ either of sentiment or of policy, in re- 
gard to slavery, was apparent. But other evidence in 
corroboration is easily adducible. In the Federal Consti- 
tution under which we now live, two other points were 
distinctly and definitively settled : 1st. Provision was 
made for the prospective^ not the immediate prohibition 
of the African slave-trade — that is to say. Congress was, 
by the clearest implication, empowered to pass laws for 
the suppression of this nefarious traffic by the clause 
wMch provides that no legislation by this body for the 
purpose specified should take place anterior to the year 
1808. 2d. The Convention, in language to which, until 
recently, only one interpretation has been any where af- 
fixed, not only guaranteed to the states wherein slavery 
then existed the right to regulate it according to their 
own discretion, without any foreign interference whatev- 



42 SCYLLA AND CHAEYBDIS. 

er, but moreover guaranteed in a manner deemed at the 
time sufficiently explicit, the return of fugitive slaves to 
the service of their recognized masters. 

No moon-struck political philosopher then undertook 
to declare that the constitutional clause guaranteeing to 
each of the states a " republican form of government" 
was designed by its framers to provide for the universal 
manumission of bondmen and bondwomen of African de- 
scent. 

I now assert, what no fair-minded man will deny, that 
the existence of slavery in the states still choosing to re- 
tain it did not, for many years after the foundation of 
the present government, become a source of excitement 
and unbrotherly feeling. The injunctions of the Consti- 
tution were every where understood in the same way, 
and were every where faithfully observed. A few abo- 
lition petitions were sent forward by a portion of the in- 
habitants of Pennsylvania to the first Congress, the ap- 
pearance of which produced no serious irritation, and 
these petitions were at once quietly disposed of and for- 
gotten, but not until the adoption of the following im- 
portant resolution : 

" Resolved^ That Congress have no authority to inter- 
fere in the emancipation of slaves, or in the treatment of 
them in any of the states ; it remaining with the several 
states alone to provide rules and regulations therein, 
which humanity and true policy may require." 

For many years, and, indeed, up to the year 1835, 
slavery in the South did not become a subject of unkind 
discussion any where. 

Justice demands the admission that, up to a period 



WEBSTER IN" DEFENSE OF THE NORTH. 43 

comparatively recent, the spirit of this resolution was 
most faithfully adhered to ; so that Mr, Webster was per- 
fectly justified in what fell from his lips on this subject 
in the memorable debate in the United States Senate be- 
tween himself and Mr. Hayne, when he said, referring to 
the resolution above cited, 

" The fears of the South, whatever fears they might 
have entertained, were allayed and quieted by this early 
decision ; and so remained, till they were excited afresh, 
without cause, but for collateral and indirect purposes. 
When it became necessary, or was thought so, by some 
political persons, to find an unvarying ground for the ex- 
clusion of Northern men from confidence and from lead 
in the affairs of the republic, then, and not till then, the 
cry was raised, and the feeling industriously excited, that 
the influence of Northern men in the public councils 
would endanger the relation of master and slave. For 
myself, I claim no other merit than that this gross and 
enormous injustice toward the whole North has not 
wrought upon me to change my opinions, or my political 
conduct. I hope I am above violating my principles, 
even under the smart of injury and false imputations. 
Unjust suspicions and undeserved reproach, whatever 
pain I may experience from them, will not induce me, I 
trust, nevertheless, to overstep the limits of constitutional 
duty, or to encroach on the rights of others. The domes- 
tic slavery of the South I leave where I find it — in the 
hands of their own governments. It is their affair, not 
mine. Nor do I complain of the peculiar effect which 
the magnitude of that population has had in the distribu- 
tion of power under this Federal government. We know, 



44 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

sir, that the representation of the states in the other House 
is not equal. We know that great advantage, in that 
respect, is enjoyed by the slaveholding states ; and we 
know, too, that the intended equivalent for that advan- 
tage, that is to say, the imposition of direct taxes in the 
same ratio, has become merely nominal — the habit of the 
government being almost invariably to collect its revenue 
from other sources and in other modes. Nevertheless, 
I do not complain, nor would I countenance any move- 
ment to alter this arrangement of representation. It is 
the original bargain, the compact : let it stand ; let the 
advantage of it be fully enjoyed. The Union itself is too 
full of benefit to be hazarded in propositions for changing 
its original basis. I go for the Constitution as it is, and for 
the Union as it is. But I am resolved not to submit in 
silence to accusations, either against myself individually 
or against the North, wholly unfounded and unjust — ac- 
cusations which impute to us a disposition to evade the 
constitutional compact, and to extend the power of the 
government over the internal laws and domestic condi- 
tion of the states. All such accusations, wherever and 
whenever made, all insinuations of the existence of any 
such purposes, I know and feel to be groundless and in- 
jurious. And we must confide in Southern gentlemen 
themselves; we must trust to those whose integrity of 
heart and magnanimity of feeling will lead them to a de- 
sire to maintain and disseminate truth, and who possess 
the means of its diffusion with the Southern public ; we 
must leave it to them to disabuse that public of its preju- 
dices. But, in the mean time, for my own part, I shall 
continue to act justly, whether those toward whom jus- 



ADMINISTEATIONS OF WASHINGTON AND ADAMS. 45 

tice is exercised receive it with candor or with con- 
tumely." 

Nothing can be more imdeniable than the proposition 
that, during the eight years' administration of Washing- 
ton, there was not in existence any where what has since 
become so mischievously known as a sectional party or- 
ganization, though much opposition was in various quar- 
ters presented to the measures of policy recommended by 
this most venerated of all our presidents. That this op- 
position was mainly of a factious and reprehensible char- 
acter can not now be doubted, and it would seem to have 
owed its origin in a considerable degree to the eager de- 
sire entertained by certain ambitious statesmen to secure 
their own advancement to the highest official position 
known to our form of government, to the exclusion of 
others whom they suspected of possessing a larger share 
than themselves of the confidence and friendly wishes of 
the exalted personage who was even then preparing to 
return to private life. The election of John Adams, of 
Massachusetts, to the Presidency, and of Thomas Jeffer- 
son, of Virginia, to the Vice Presidency of the United 
States, would appear to prove conclusively that sectional 
jealousies had not yet gained much strength in either of 
the two great divisions of the republic. The passage of 
the Alien and Sedition Acts, during the administration 
of the elder Adams, and the questions connected with 
the then anticipated war with France, furnished a plausi- 
ble occasion for the array of opposition to the new ad- 
ministration, and supplied an opportunity far too tempt- 
ing to be passed by of calling into existence a party or- 
ganization which, under proper tutelage and traming, it 



46 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

was lioped miglit be of sufficient power to prevent the 
election of the then incumbent for a second presidential 
term, and secure the elevation in his stead of one of the 
most accomplished statesmen, as well as one of the most 
astute and skillful political managers that has yet made 
his appearance any where upon the public stage. With 
a view to attaining the interesting end then held in view, 
it was necessary that steps should be immediately taken 
to aggregate all the elements of political opposition in 
one cohesive and potential mass, that the same might be 
wielded with adequate efficacy against those who were 
then seated in the highest stations of Federal trust. 
Hence the adroit preparation of the celebrated Virginia 
and Kentucky Eesolutions of 1798, '9, the former of which 
are now known to have been drawn by Mr. Jefferson, 
and transmitted to certain trusted political friends of his 
in Kentucky, while the latter were drafted by Mr. Madi- 
son, under the counsels of the- same distinguished person- 
age (always recognized by the former thereafter as his 
veritable political Magnus Apollo), and placed in the 
willing and ever facile hands of the celebrated John Tay- 
lor, of Caroline, for presentation to the Virginia Legisla- 
ture. I have not time now to analyze either of these 
famous sets of resolutions, nor have I the smallest incli- 
nation to do so. They answered admirably well the pur- 
poses for which they had been originally fabricated ; and 
though the dogmas embodied in these resolutions were 
not sufficiently fortunate to find general sanction in the, 
co-states of the Union, yet they undoubtedly constituted, 
in a great degree, the basis upon which that great polit- 
ical party was then brought into existence, which was 



VIRGINIA AND KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS. 47 

soon to raise to the presidency three eminent personages 
in succession, all of .whom will go down to future gener- 
ations as representatives of a school of politics which 
owes its origin and long-retained ascendency mainly to 
the subtle and prolific genius of him to whom his numer- 
ous admirers have been long accustomed to refer as " the 
sage of Monticello." That the fearful doctrine of nullifi- 
cation^ which was more than twenty years subsequent to 
this period so imposingly blazoned forth to the world by 
Mr. Calhoun and his enthusiastic political disciples, and 
that of secessioyi likewise, which has been recently sub- 
jected to the severest of all earthly tests, may be directly 
traced to these same resolutions, though perchance not 
set forth in either of them with all the precision and 
clearness that an Aristotle or a Locke would have re- t/- 
quired, no discerning and unprejudiced man will be 
much inclined to dispute. That either set of these reso- 
lutions contains sound and salutary principles, and is in 
strict unison with the Constitution framed by our fathers, 
few, it is to be presumed, will be hereafter heard to as- 
sert. It is certainly not a little remarkable that Mr. Mad- 
ison, who, in the Federal Convention, was the close ally 
of Hamilton and Governeur Morris in claiming for the 
new government which he was aiding to build up pow- 
ers wholly inconsistent with the practical enforcement 
either of nullification or secession, and who had said on 
one occasion, according to his own report of the matter, 
that he " was of opinion, in the first place, that there was 
less danger of encroachment from the general govern- 
ment than from the state governments ; and, in the sec- 
ond place, that the mischiefs from the encroachments 



48 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

would be less fatal," sliould have not only consented to 
draw up the Virginia Kesolutions of '98, but should have 
also agreed to be the draftsman, one year later, of an 
elaborate report prepared expressly for the purpose of 
explaining and enforcing these same resolutions. It is 
true that in after life he disavowed any intention on this 
occasion to yield his sanction either to nullification or se- 
cession, and I have certainly no inclination either to call 
in question the sincerity of this eminent personage, or to 
accuse him of gross forgetfulness as to the operations of 
his own clear and well-balanced intellect ; but I repeat 
that the language of his resolutions, as well as those 
drawn by Mr. Jefferson, as already noticed, must be re- 
garded as inculcating all the perilous doctrines now rec- 
ognized as specially appertaining to the South Carolina 
school of politicians. However objectionable these doc- 
trines may be in practice, I am not aware that their pro- 
mulgation, at the close of the last century, in the manner 
■^ described, had the effect of calling into action feelings of 
sectional jealousy^ or of impressing upon the public mind 
in either section sentiments of acerbity, alienation, or dis- 
trust. It is indeed probable that the effect of the excit- 
ing struggle for political ascendency in 1801 was chiefly 
to cause the depositories of Federal power to be a little 
more on their guard against the perpetration of encroach- 
ments on the reserved rights of the states and people 
than they might otherwise have been, and that, in point 
of fact, it may in this way have contributed rather to pre- 
vent than to instigate collisions calculated to endanger 
the domestic peace. 

I can not well refrain from remarking here, in passing, 



STATES-RIGHT THEOKY REPUDIATED AT RICHMOND. 49 

that, during the four years just elapsed, the Southern 
States of the Union have had the most conclusive evi- 
dence supplied to them, and in forms eminently impress- 
ive in every way, of the utter futility and worthlessness 
of all the ultra states-rights governmental theories ; since, 
in less than a twelve-month after a Constitution had been 
agreed upon at Montgomery, framed especially with a 
view to indicating the intention of its framers to set forth 
and promulgate to all the world a "compact among sov- 
ereign states," to which compact each of said states should 
be recognized as having " acceded as a state, its co-states 
forming, as to itself, the other party;" providing, too, 
that the "government created" by said compact should 
not be "the exclusive or final judge of the extent of 
powers delegated to itself;" and providing still farther, 
that "as in all other cases of compact among powers 
having no common judge, each party" should have "a 
right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the 
mode and manner of redress ;" since, I repeat, in less than 
a twelve-month after this same boasted states-right Con- 
stitution was put in operation, its very framers notorious- 
ly, and in spite of all remonstrances, succeeded in consol- 
idating all governmental power in the central agency at 
Eichmond, and, upon the stale plea of military necessity^ 
shamelessly trod under foot all the reserved rights of the 
states and people, and organized an irresponsible military 
despotism in the very bosom of the Ancient Dominion, 
as harsh and grinding in its character as has ever hereto- 
fore existed in any age of the world. On this subject I 
shall in due season bring forward such damning evi- 
dences as will profoundly shock the sensibilities of all 

C 



50 SCYLLA AND CHAEYBDIS. 

the friends of orderly and well-regulated government, 
and all the honest upholders of true constitutional liberty. 

Of the intermediate period which elapsed between the 
inauguration of Mr. Jefferson as President, on the 4th of 
March, 1801, and the year 1819, when the celebrated 
Missouri question shook the republic to its centre, I have 
only to observe that, with the exception of the period of 
excitement which intervened when the Embargo meas- 
ure was upon its trial, and the war of 1812 with Great 
Britain was in progress, the country, and every portion 
of it, enjoyed an almost halcyon repose. However fierce 
may have been the denunciations of the Embargo policy 
in certain quarters, as well in Congress as out of it, what- 
ever insane and indecent menaces may have been fulmi- 
nated by Hartford Convention zealots, and others of a 
similar complexion, the tranquillity of the republic was 
at no time dangerously disturbed ; the waves of popular 
excitement were again and quickly calmed into a state 
of complete serenity, and all angry and unkind feeling 
was seen once more to disappear. Never were any peo- 
ple in the enjoyment of a more happy, and, to all appear- 
ance, a more assured state of domestic quietude than were 
our honored fellow-countrymen on the 4:th of March, 
1817. This period of our history is borne in pleasant 
recollection by 23ersons who still survive, and continues, 
to some extent, yet to be referred to by them as "the 
era of good feeling." 

But soon came the Missouri struggle, that ^^ fire-hell of 
the nigJit,^^ as Mr. Jefferson figuratively entitles it. Upon 
this oft-discussed topic I shall here only hazard a few 
suggestions, and gladly would I refrain from alluding to 



MISSOUKI STKUGGLE. ol 

it altogether, could I do so consistently with the faithful 
execution of the task which I have assumed. The his- 
toric details which belong to this famous contest are al- 
ready, indeed, sufficiently well known to most of those 
who may glance over these pages, and recent occurrences 
have rendered it altogether impossible for men even of 
ordinary intelligence to avoid some little acquaintance 
with them. 

The principal facts are capable of being concisely 
stated as follows : The people of the Missouri Territory, 
in the early part of the year 1818, memorialized Con- 
gress for its admission into the Federal Union as a state. 
This memorial was at first favorably received, and a bill 
for the admission of the new state was quickly reported 
to the House of Representatives from the appropriate 
committee in that body. There was not sufficient time 
for the bill to become a law before Congress adjourned, 
to meet again in the month of ISTovember of the same 
year, when the measure of admission was taken up for 
consideration. An amendment thereto was now offered 
by a representative of the State of New York, providing 
against "the introduction of slavery or involuntary serv- 
itude" in said territory after it should have become a 
state, and had been admitted into the Federal Union as 
such. This restriction was incorporated with the bill in 
the House, and the bill as amended was sent to the Sen- 
ate for its consideration. The latter body struck out the 
restrictive amendment, and adopted the bill as a simple 
act of admission. 

In the form which it had thus assumed in the Senate 
the bill again made its appearance in the House, when a 



52 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

motion for its indefinite postponement having failed, 
upon the question which then arose of concurrence in 
the territorial amendment, a small negative majority was 
the result, and the bill, embodying again the restriction 
mentioned, a second time reached the Senate, when, the 
latter body insisting upon its amendment, it was once 
more sent back to the House, where a motion that the 
House should adhere to its vote of disagreement prevail- 
ed. Missouri was not, therefore, then admitted. Again 
the measure was brought forward in the Congress which 
commenced its session in December, 1819. After much 
altercation in both Houses, and various movements of cu- 
rious political adroitness not needful to be here specified, 
with an intense excitement ever on the increase alike in 
Congress and in the whole country, a compromise^ as it 
was called, was finally agreed upon, whereby the State of 
Missouri was given admission as a slave state, with its 
territorial extent limited to the North by the line of 36 
degrees 80 minutes north latitude ; and in all the remain- 
ing territory belonging to the government of the country 
acquired by purchase from France in the year 1803, slav- 
ery or involuntary servitude yi2,^ forever proliihited. 

Such is the substance of the celebrated Missouri Com- 
promise, devised by able statesmen and devoted patriots 
nearly a half century ago, for the purpose of saving the 
republic itself from ruin then most seriously menaced. 
And who shall now censure this wise and noble act, 
which restored peace once more to a disturbed country, 
and perchance averted the horrors of war as fierce and 
terrible as that which we of the present generation have 
just so painfully realized? 



MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 53 

As to the power of Congress, under the Federal Consti- 
tution, to exclude slavery from any portion of the public 
domain of which it has been given control, I have at pres- 
ent little to say. Whether, under the clause of the Con- 
stitution giving to Congress "power to make needful rules 
and regulations respecting the territory of the United 
States," that body may adopt, as one of these regulations, 
such a prohibitory clause as that embodied in the Missou- 
ri Compromise, thus assimilating the whole of the vacant 
territory of which it has been given the administration 
to that portion merely to which a similar prohibition was 
extended under the authority of the confederation, is a 
question exceedingly difficult to be satisfactorily solved ; 
upon which the ablest and purest statesmen, and the most 
astute and erudite jurists that the country has known 
have been long most painfully divided in opinion, and 
one which (perhaps happily for us all) has been now for- 
ever settled by the sternest and most inexorable arbiter 
to whose decision it is possible that the earth-born affairs 
of mortals can be submitted. But, I again ask, who of 
us now of the present generation will presume to con- 
demn the peace-makers of 1819 ? Who is at this moment 
inclined to bring harsh and undeserved opprobrium upon 
the great and good men, whether of the North or of the 
South, who risked their fame, their popularity, and per- 
chance in some instances, also, their repose in social life, 
for their country's safety at a moment so full of peril ? 
Where is the man that will undertake to deny that, in 
nearly all the most difficult concerns of human society, 
when great public interests are at stake, and when ques- 
tions shall arise for decision eminently dark and difficult 



54 SCYLLA AND CHAEYBDIS. 

in their character, and which stand surrounded on all sides 
with considerations of grave and vital expediency, so ur- 
gent in their nature as imperiously to demand that all the 
nobler instincts of the soul should be put in exercise, as 
well as all the higher faculties of the understanding, for 
the ascertainment of the true pathway of duty — where is 
the man, I ask, who will deny that compromise — yes, com- 
promise^ a little giving and taking, here and there, on both 
sides of the line of controversy — a little conciliation, for- 
bearance, yea, and of sacrifice too, if need be, of cherished 
opinions, of loved personal interests, and of the ambitious 
desires for local ascendency, may be both wise and patriot- 
ic, if any or all of these shall be found to stand in the 
way of a nation's salvation ? Were not such the views 
of Washington and his compeers of the last century ? Is 
it not in support of such views as these that some men of 
our times, little less worthy of love and veneration than 
the men of '76 themselves, have been known to act on 
more than one critical occasion ? Compromise ! Compro- 
mise ! that term hateful to the dreamers and cold abstrac- 
tionists of the present vapid and shallow generation, but 
which is, notwithstanding, oftentimes grandly typical of 
the utmost attainable perfection of human reasoning, when 
that reasoning may be said to partake least of the discred- 
iting taint of mortality, and to approach most nearly to the 
unerring and unfathomable wisdom of the Deity himself! 
I propose to conclude this chapter with an apt and 
pregnant quotation from a work of a deceased American 
statesman on Government^ which I fear has been far too 
little read since its first appearance, about fifteen years 
ago, even in the very region in which it had its origin. 



CALHOUN" ON COMPROMISE. 55 

and among the avowed disciples, too, of a truly great and 
patriotic personage, who, I can not doubt, is destined to be 
much better understood and much more accurately appre- 
ciated hereafter than it was his fortune to be by many in 
his own age. 

Thus speaks John C. Calhoun, as it were, from the tomb 
wherein he lies inurned : 

'' Constitutional governments, of whatever form, are, in- 
deed, much more similar to each other in their structure 
and character than they are, respectively, to the absolute 
governments even of their own class. All constitutional 
governments, of whatever class they may be, take the 
sense of the community by its parts, each through its ap- 
propriate organ, and regard the sense of all its parts as 
the sense of the whole. They all rest on the right of 
suffrage, and the responsibility of rulers, directly or indi- 
rectly. On the contrary, all absolute governments, of 
whatever form, concentrate power in one uncontrolled 
and irresponsible individual or body, whose will is re- 
garded as the sense of the community. And hence the 
great and broad distinction between governments is not 
that of the one, the few, or the many, but of the constitu- 
tional and the absolute. 

''From this there results another distinction, which, al- 
though secondary in its character, very strongly marks 
the difference between these forms of government. I re- 
fer to their respective conservative principle — that is, the 
principle by which they are upheld and preserved. This 
principle, in constitutional governments, is com2')romise^ 
and in absolute governments is force^ as will be next ex- 
plained. 

"It has been already shown that the same constitution 



56 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

of man wliicli leads those who govern to oppress the gov- 
erned, if not prevented, will, with equal force and certain- 
ty, lead the latter to resist oppression, when possessed of 
the means of doing so peaceably and successfully. But 
absolute governments, of all forms, exclude all other 
means of resistance to their authority than that of force, 
and, of course, leave no other alternative to the govern- 
ed but to acquiesce in oppression, however great it may 
be, or to resort to force to put down the government. 
But the dread of such a resort must necessarily lead the 
government to prepare to meet force in order to protect 
itself; and hence, of necessity, force becomes the conserv- 
ative principle of all such governments. 

"On the contrary, the government of the concurrent 
majority, where the organism is perfect, excludes the pos- 
sibility of oppression, by giving to each interest, or por- 
tion, or order, where there are established classes, the 
means of protecting itself, by its negative, against all meas- 
ures calculated to advance the peculiar interests of others 
at its expense. Its effect, then, is to cause the different 
interests, portions, or orders, as the case may be, to desist 
from attempting to adopt any measure calculated to pro- 
mote the prosperity of one or more, by sacrificing that of 
others ; and thus to force them to unite in such measures 
only as would promote the prosperity of all, as the only 
means to prevent the suspension of the action of the gov- 
ernment, and thereby to avoid anarchy, the greatest of all 
evils. It is by means of such authorized and effectual re- 
sistance that oppression is prevented, and the necessity of 
resorting to force superseded, in governments of the con- 
current majority; and hence compromise, instead of force, 
becomes their conservative principle. 



CALHOUN ON COMPROMISE. 57 

"It would perhaps be more strictly correct to trace the 
conservative principle of constitutional governments to 
the necessity which compels the different interests, or por- 
tions, or orders to compromise, as the only way to pro- 
mote their respective prosperity and to avoid anarchy, 
rather than to the compromise itself. No necessity can 
be more urgent and imperious than that of avoiding an- 
archy. It is the same as that which makes government 
indispensable to preserve society, and is not less impera- 
tive than that which compels obedience to superior force. 
Traced to this source, the voice of a people — uttered un- 
der the necessity of avoiding the greatest of calamities, 
through the organs of a government so constructed as to 
suppress the expression of all partial and selfish interests, 
and to give a full and faithful utterance to the sense of 
the whole community in reference to its common welfare 
— may, without impiety, be called the voice of God. To 
call any other so would be impious. 

"In stating that force is the conservative principle of 
absolute, and compromise of constitutional governments, 
I have assumed both to be perfect in their kind ; but not 
without bearing in mind that few or none, in fact, have 
ever been so absolute as not to be under some restraint, 
and none so perfectly organized as to represent fully and 
perfectly the voice of the whole community. Such being 
the case, all must, in practice, depart more or less from the 
principles by which they are respectively upheld and pre- 
served, and depend more or less for support on force, or 
compromise, as the absolute or the constitutional form 
predominates in their respective organizations." 

C 2 



58 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Happy Cessation of Excitement after tlie Adoption of the Missouri Com- 
promise. — Era of good Feeling during the Remainder of Mr. Monroe's 
Administration.— Presidential Contest of 1824.— Mr. Adams's Elec- 
tion by the House of Representatives to the Presidency.— Inaugural 
Speech of Mr. Adams.— Interesting Scene in the White House on the 
Occasion of President Monroe's taking Leave of his Friends to return 
to his private Home in Virginia.— Intense Excitement growing out of 
Mr. Adams's Election, but "without any Intermixture of sectional Feel- 
ing.— Violent and illiberal Opposition to his Administration. — Defeat 
of Mr. Adams for Re-election in 1828, and Elevation of General An- 
drew Jackson in his Stead,— Rise of Nullification in South Carolina in 
1832.— GeneralJackson's Proclamation against South Carolina.— Mr. 
Clay's successful Scheme of Pacification, known as the Compromise 
Tariff Bill.— Origin of Abolition Societies in 1835.— Minute historical 
Account of these Societies given in Mr. Greeley's "American Conflict."' 
— Mr. Webster's striking Remarks upon these Societies in his 7th of 
March Speech.— Author declines any special Notice of the Presenta- 
tion of Abolition Petitions, and the excited Discussions growing out of 
the same.— Notice of the Acquisition of Texas with the general Con- 
sent of the American People.— Breaking out of the Mexican War, and 
Presentation of the Wilmot Proviso in the Midst thereof.— Author's 
Election to the United States Senate, with Jefferson Davis as his offi- 
cial Colleague. — Serious political Disagreements between them. — 
Sketch of President Davis's Character, with some Notice of his Histo- 
ly.—Session of the United States Senate commencing in December, 
1847, Mr. Dickinson's Non-intervention Resolution, and Mr. Cal- 
houn's extreme Opposition to it. — Curious colloquial Scene in the Sen- 
ate—General Cass's Nicholson Letter,— Complimentary Notice of Gen- 
eral Cass. 

In taking a retrospect of the past, it is alike surprising 
and gratifying to observe how soon after the adoption of 



VALUE OF COMPROMISE. 59 

the Missouri Compromise it was that the pubhc mind 
became every where once more tranquil. 

The majestic ship of state, which Longfellow has so 
beautifully depictured, was seen careering again over the 
surface of the now untroubled deep, whose waves had no 
•longer power to disturb the regularity of its movements, 
or impede the celerity of its course. Those of us who 
remember the three years of happy quietude which our 
country enjoyed under the upright and truly conserva- 
tive administration of Mr. Fillmore, are best able to un- 
derstand how magically efficacious are sometimes found 
to be the healing balsams furnished by a judicious and lib- 
eral pharmacopoeia, when these shall be applied in season 
to wounds inflicted by unfriendly hands upon the most 
vital parts of the body politic. I shall ever hold it to 
have been a most fortunate circumstance for our coun- 
try's welfare that a few of those experienced and gifted 
statesmen who had been prominently instrumental in 
saving the republic from menaced overthrow in 1819 
lingered still upon the public stage after full thirty years 
had rolled away, and that they were found alike ready 
and willing to lend their inspiring presence, as well as 
their priceless monitions, to a rash and froward genera- 
tion, who at one moment seemed bent upon making sud- 
den shipwreck of those moral treasures which, once lost, 
are in general found to be completely past recovery. 
But let us proceed with our rapid historic review. 

During the remainder of Mr. Monroe's administration 
party excitement was almost unknown, and indeed at the 
close of it there was only one party designation known 
in all the broad republic. It was during the continuance 



60 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

of this political calm that four presidential candidates 
were seen to present themselves to popular considera- 
tion, all of whom professed to be of the same creed, and 
claimed the same political associations — Mr. Crawford, 
Mr. Clay, General Jackson, and Mr. John Quincy Adams, 
about the shoulders of the last of whom was the presi- 
dential mantle destined to be ultimately cast. 

On the 4th day of March, 1825, the writer of these 
pages, then a mere novice in the great world of national 
politics, had the honor of seeing John Quincy Adams for 
the first time, and of listening to that inaugural speech 
of his which was fated to call forth so much of sharp and 
biting criticism, and of ungenerous objurgation. I was, 
an hour or two afterward, one of the numerous visitants 
who thronged the presidential mansion in order to take 
leave of Mr. Monroe and to greet the incoming of his 
successor, and well do I remember the bland and cheer- 
ful aspect of the venerable man who, then in a state of 
green old age, was gracefully casting off the harness of 
ofiicial labor and responsibility, as well as the solemn and 
care-marked visage of his successor, who, under embar- 
rassing and unprecedented circumstances, and with the 
prospect opening upon him of a long course of virulent 
and relentless assailment from a thousand heretofore 
friendly quarters, was about to take upon himself duties 
the performance of which I am sure no truly sagacious 
man has ever yet eagerly coveted, who at the same time 
expected to perform them with a true and vigorous fidel- 
ity. Though Mr. Adams very soon found a fierce and 
energetic party organized for his overthrow, and though 
the most strenuous efforts were used by his zealous oppo- 



JACKSON — WEBSTER — CLAY. 61 

nents in order to effect his defeat in the next presidential 
election, I am not aware that this opposition to him has 
been heretofore asserted to have been at all of a sectional 
cast. AYhen General Jackson succeeded him in 1829 
there were no indications any where that a political or- 
ganization merely sectional in its character was at all like- 
ly to make its sinister appearance either in the North or 
in the South. After the second election of this remarka- 
ble personage had occurred, though, and perhaps a little 
before the close of his first of&cial term, such an organ- 
ization did arise in the State of South Carolina, which 
very soon ramified itself into several other states. The 
grounds assumed for the formation of this party were 
plausible enough in the beginning, but it never had a 
perfectly healthful and vigorous existence, and would, in 
in all probability, have ultimately perished from its own 
intrinsic feebleness, even had it not been promptly and 
energetically dealt with by the heroic and sagacious man 
then occupying the chair of state. The local movements 
which at that period occurred in South Carolina; the 
dangerous political theories disseminated then among her 
sensitive and mercurial people; the conventional ordi- 
nances solemnly adopted, but which were destined never 
to be enforced ; the excited and long-continued discus- 
sion which these various movements brought on in the 
halls of the national Congress ; Mr. Webster's several au- 
gust and triumphant refutations of the absurd theory of 
nullification ; General Jackson's paralyzing and crushing 
proclamation, are all yet fresh in the memories of millions. 
I hope it is not yet forgotten either, that in 1832, Mr. 
Clay, the great pacificator ^ as he has been so aptly enti- 



62 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

tied, was, fortunately, tlien in the national Senate, and 
that, being earnestly pressed from various quarters, as I 
have myself more than once heard him declare to be. the 
fact, to undertake the work of conciliation then so much 
needed, this gentleman, with that clear judgment and 
lofty moral courage for which he was so celebrated, 
brought forward and quickly secured the passage of what 
is known as the Compromise Tariff Bill, which measure 
proved satisfactory to fair and just-minded men every 
where, extinguished the local excitement yet lingering in 
South Carolina, and diffused peace and brotherly kind- 
ness once more over the whole republic. 

About the year 1835, as has been generally agreed, a 
new and serious danger to the quiet of the country began 
to disclose itself: I allude to organized opposition, in 
some of the free states of the North, to slavery as it then 
existed in the South. For many reasons, some of which 
are of a nature which I do not deem it expedient here to 
unfold, the united force of which, though, will give to 
them a controlling influence over my action in this par- 
ticular, I shall decline entering into a minute examina- 
tion of all the painful particulars connected, in one way 
or another, with the origin and speedy multiplication of 
associations set on foot in the free states for the destruc- 
tion of the slaveholding system of the South. Those 
who are desirous of obtaining information upon this sub- 
ject, both ample in volume and minute in detail, embel- 
lished with frequent delineations of character, and numer- 
ous scenes not unsuited to appear in the pages of a well- 
written romance, or as portions of some stately produc- 
tion inspired by the historic muse, will be able to gratify 



WEBSTER ON ABOLITION SOCIETIES. 63 

their curiosity on this subject most fully by lookino- 
through the first volume of Mr. Greeley's "American 
Conflict." I may be permitted, I trust, without giving 
serious offense in any respectable quarter, to say that, 
while I am disposed to give full credit to many of the 
prominent champions of abolition, whose virtues and 
achievements the author just referred to has so glowing- 
ly depictured, for entire conscientiousness of motive^ and 
for having also done more or less good in their day and 
generation (good unfortunately not unmixed with evil), 
yet I can not but agree with Mr. Webster in what he is 
reported to have said in regard to the same associations 
in his great 7th of March speech, which contains the fol- 
lowing weighty declarations : 

" Then, sir, there are the abolition societies, of which 
I am unwilling to speak, but in regard to which I have 
very clear notions and opinions. I do not think them 
useful. I think their operations for the last twenty years 
have produced nothing good or valuable. At the same 
time, I believe thousands of their members to be honest 
and good men, perfectly well-meaning men. They have 
excited feelings, they think they must do something for 
the cause of liberty ; and in their sphere of action they 
do not see what else they can do than to contribute to 
an abolition press, or an abolition society, or to pay an 
abolition lecturer, I do not mean to impute gross mo- 
tives even to the leaders of these societies, but I am not 
blind to the consequences of their proceedings. I can 
not" but see what mischiefs their interference with the 
South has produced. And is it not plain to every man? 
Let any gentleman who entertains doubts on this point 



64 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

recur to the debates in the Virginia House of Delegates 
in 1832, and he will see with what freedom a proposition 
made by Mr. Jefferson Kandolph for the gradual aboli- 
tion of slavery was discussed in that body. Every one 
spoke of slavery as he thought ; very ignominious and 
disparaging names and epithets were applied to it. The 
debates in the House of Delegates on that occasion, I be- 
lieve, are all published. They were read by every col- 
ored man who could read, and to those who could not 
read those debates were read by others. At that time 
Virginia was not unwilling or afraid to discuss this ques- 
tion, and to let that part of her population know as much 
of the discussion as they could learn. That was in 1835. 
As has been said by the honorable member from South 
Carolina, Mr. Calhoun, these abolition societies commenced 
a new course of action. It is said, I do not know how 
true it may be, that they sent incendiary publications into 
the slave states; at any rate, they attempted to arouse, 
and did arouse a very strong feeling; in other words, 
they created great agitation in the North against South- 
ern slavery. Well, what was the result? The bonds 
of the slaves were bound more firmly than before ; their 
rivets were more strongly fastened. Public opinion, 
which in Virginia had begun to be exhibited against 
slavery, and was opening out for the discussion of the 
question, drew back and shut itself up in its castle. I 
wish to know whether any body in Virginia can now 
talk openly, as Mr. Eandolph, Governor McDowell, and 
others talked in 1832, and sent their remarks to the 
press? We all know the fact, and we all know the 
cause ; and every thing that these agitating people have 



TWENTY YEARS AGO. 65 

done has been, not to enlarge, but to restrain, not to set 
free, but to bind faster, the slave population of the 
South." 

I shall cheerfully leave to others the unwelcome task 
of describing those scenes of crimination and recrimina- 
tion which have heretofore taken place in the two Houses 
of Congress in connection with the presentations of abo- 
lition petitions, and which are known to have been 
marked with ebullitions of rancor and ill-will, which no 
true friend to the future repose and concord of the re- 
public can desire to withhold from oblivion. I should 
be of all men most unwilling to do or say aught on this 
delicate and exciting subject to inflame ancient irrita- 
tions, or provoke the fresh discussion of questions which 
are now most emphatically res judicata. That there has 
been much of needless and unprofitable zeal manifested 
in times past, both on the -one side and the other, upon 
the occasions referred to, no reasonable man would now 
be inclined to deny. For my own part, I am not a little 
gratified to feel that, in order to develop the true causes 
which have led to so much shedding of fraternal blood in 
civil strife as we have been of late compelled to witness, 
it will not be necessary to dwell to the extent which some 
of our contemporaries have judged it right to do upon 
various topics which I have determined, for the reason 
just suggested, altogether to pretermit. 

After much and painful scrutiny, I have become en- 
tirely satisfied that twenty years ago there was no earthly 
danger that abolition hostility would ever be able to ac- 
complish the downfall of African slavery on this conti- 
nent. Under the protecting segis of the Federal Consti- 



66 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

tution, with the exercise of a sound practical discretion 
on the part of its professed friends and supporters, it 
would doubtless have survived for many generations yet 
to come, and would have been only in the end dispensed 
with when those connected with its control and manage- 
ment should have found that its continued existence was 
no longer desirable either to themselves or to the world 
at large. Twenty years ago, Mr. Polk had been triumph- 
ant over his great competitor, Mr. Clay, mainly upon 
what was known as the issue of Texan annexation, and 
was vigorously and successfully running that career 
which has so justly endeared his name to all who feel a 
proper interest in the future territorial extension and 
moral ascendency of the American republic in this hem- 
isphere. Twenty years ago, the slaveholding system of 
the South seemed to be well-nigh as solid and likely to 
endure even as the Federal Union itself. Twenty years 
ago, the now prostrate and exhausted states of the South 
were prosperous, free, and happy, and those who dwelt 
therein possessed the respect and sympathy of the en- 
lightened and liberal-minded in every country where the 
honored name of America had itself been pronounced. 

The prejudices of men on both sides of the Atlantic in 
regard to every thing Southern, either in its location or 
origin, so far as their prejudices had made themselves 
apparent, were fast giving way under the influence of 
great commercial considerations, and of that surest of all 
teachers — Time. The then recent acquisition of Texas, 
obtained with the general consent of the American peo- 
ple, North as well as South, mainly, as we all vividly re- 
member, with a view to defeating the anti-slavery policy 



WILMOT PROVISO, NORTH AND SOUTH. 67 

of Great Britain, then aiming to undermine tlie cotton- 
growing system of the South by converting Texas into a 
free, British province, had supplied a new bulwark to 
that system, and a wider area for African slavery, then 
generally supposed to be so desirable. The thrice happy 
and exultant South, in despite of the solemn teachings 
of her sagest and most sagacious statesman, was then, like 
the youthful Alexander, '•'' sighing for new worlds to con- 
quer," and was preparing, with the apparent sanction of 
millions dwelling far to the north of the celebrated Ma- 
son and Dixon's line, to plunge the country into a war 
with contiguous Mexico. 

Just then movements originated which, though they at- 
tracted less attention at the time than they should have 
done, were opening the way to occurrences the influence 
of which will be felt for a thousand generations yet to 
arise. Soon the Wilmot Proviso cloud, at first "no big- 
ger than a man's hand," was, before it should disappear, 
to cover the whole heavens with blackness. Presently 
a second cloud, sometimes, and aptly, entitled " the Wil- 
mot Proviso South," w^as to make its appearance, and aid 
in precipitating the coming storm. At this period of the 
country's history I had the fortune to be sent to the 
United States Senate from the State of Mississippi, as the 
colleasjue of one whose name is now a familiar w^ord in 
the languages of all nations. A portion of what I saiu 
and heard in that high position, and of what I have au- 
thentically learned from miscellaneous sources, both in 
Washington and elsewhere, I shall now proceed to bring 
forward, with such occasional reflections as shall occur to 
me. Aware how difficult it is, as Mr. Gibbon has finely 



68 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

remarked, for " a man to speak gracefully of himself," I 
shall yet have to incur the hazard of being accused by 
some of unbecoming egotism in undertaking to narrate 
occurrences of great dignity and importance, in which, 
though always acting a very subordinate part, I had nec- 
essarily, to some extent, an official participation. Hop- 
ing that what I shall now attempt to impart will at least 
receive a liberal interpretation, I shall proceed to the task 
before me. 

As would be naturally expected, I shall essay, as a 
preliminary proceeding, to describe, in as concise a man- 
ner as I can, and with as much impartiality, I trust, as if 
he had lived a thousand years ago, the personage whom 
the accidents of public life had now given me for a sena- 
torial colleague. Mr. Davis was born, as I have repeat- 
edly heard from his own lips, in the State of Kentucky, 
where he was afterward in part educated. His boyish 
days were spent chiefly in the State of Mississippi, whence 
he was sent, in due season, to "West Point, as a cadet of 
that institution. On graduating there, he joined the reg- 
ular army, as is usual in such cases, and I saw him first 
in the city of Yicksburg, more than thirty years ago, as 
Lieutenant Davis, He was then a young man of modest 
and pleasing aspect and manners, but gave slight indica- 
tions of any abilities likely to lead to future distinction. 
He married, left the army, and settled himself on a plant- 
ation of respectable dimensions in the southern part of 
the County of Warren, some twenty miles from the city 
of Vicksburg, where he has constantly resided since, un- 
til he became President of the Confederate States. I saw 
him rarely after his retirement, being myself a good deal 



JEFFERSON DAVIS. 69 

engaged at this period in professional and other pursuits ; 
but I have learned that Mr. Davis lived a very secluded 
and studious life for a series of years, until about the year 
1843 he visited the city of Jackson as delegate to a Dem- 
ocratic Convention ; during the session of which body I 
met him once more, and heard from his lips a formal and 
elaborate eulogy upon Mr. Calhoun's character and prin- 
ciples, which impressed the Convention very favorably 
indeed. In 1844, Mr. Davis and myself, as Democratic 
co-electoral candidates upon the Polk and Dallas presi- 
dential ticket, traversed the State of Mississippi together, 
and addressed in connection numerous large popular as- 
semblages, by whom, in general, he was most kindly and 
respectfully received, and attentively listened to. He 
was afterward nominated for Congress, and elected to a 
seat in the House of Eepresentatives, which he occupied 
for several months of one session only, having been 
chosen, in his absence at "Washington, colonel of a new 
volunteer regiment which had been a short time before 
raised in Mississippi for the Mexican "War, which was then 
in progress. The regiment which Mr. Davis commanded 
as colonel won much eclat both at Monterey and Buena- 
vista, at the latter of which places he was severely wound- 
ed in the foot, and, returning home on a visit. Governor 
A. G. Brown, with general popular approval, appointed 
him to the seat in the United States Senate from the 
State of Mississippi, which had recently become vacant 
by reason of the decease of General Speight. Mr. Davis 
and myself journeyed to Washington City together in 
the autumn of 1847, and arrived there several days be- 
fore the session of Congress commenced. Very soon 



70 SCYLLA AND CHAEYBDIS. 

after taking our seats as senators from the same state, it 
became apparent that serious incompatibilities, both of 
taste and temper, as well as exceedingly conflicting views 
of men and measures, forbade all reasonable hope of our 
being able to harmonize as would have been every way 
so desirable. My opinion of Mr. Davis then was pretty 
much as it is at present, and may be expressed in a few 
words. He is, in the ordinary sense of those terms, a 
high-minded and well-bred man. In domestic life, I do 
not doubt that he is amiable and exemplary. In his tem- 
per, as displayed on public occasions, he is arbitrary and 
exacting, His personal ambition is most intense and ex- 
orbitant. He is overtenacious alike in his public resolves 
and in his personal partialities and prejudices. He doubt- 
less always intends to do rights but is often in gross error^ 
both as to men and to affairs. His disposition, naturally 
irritable and unquiet, has been much sharpened and em- 
bittered of late years by long-continued and severe nerv- 
ous disease, and by numerous disappointments. His in- 
tellect is certainly above mediocrity, both in strength and 
activity, and his general literary attainments are respect- 
able ) but it will be admitted by all who have approached 
him nearly, and who are themselves competent to judge, 
that his mind is not at all remarkable either for compre- 
hensive force or for a rich fecundity of ideas. With the 
particular branches of science belonging to a strictly mil- 
itary education he is more than ordinarily familiar; in 
other departments of learning he is decidedly deficient. 
As a party tactician, he is astute, subtle, and plausible ; 
but he is sadly deficient in judgment, in a politic turn for 
conciliation, and in the exercise of a liberal allowance for 



DANIEL S. DICKINSON — HIS EESOLUTIONS. 71 

trivial differences of opinion. His public course is about 
as consistent as could be well expected among politicians 
more solicitous of obeying party obligations and securing 
personal advancement, than of maintaining principles and 
promoting the public welfare. Upon the whole, those 
who have judged him capable of originating a grand rev- 
olutionary movement, and of conducting it forward to 
success, are as much in error as are those, if there be any, 
who suppose him capable of such cold-blooded and cruel 
atrocities as those which have been of late so trippingly 
attributed to him. 

One of the most agreeable reminiscences of my past 
public life is the first interview which occurred in Wash- 
ington City about this time between the Hon. Daniel S. 
Dickinson and myself. I saw this gentleman first in the 
spring of 1847. When we met a few months afterward, 
and just before the .assemblage of the Congress of 1847, '8, 
Mr. Dickinson did me the honor of submitting to my 
consideration the following resolutions, which he inform- 
ed me he had previously laid before General Cass, then 
the acknowledged leader of the Democratic party in Con- 
gress, and I learned from him also that this gentleman 
had heartily endorsed the same : 

^^ Resolved, That true policy requires the government of 
the United States to strengthen its political relations upon 
this continent by the annexation of such contiguous terri- 
tory as may conduce to that end, and can be justly obtain- 
ed ; and that neither in such acquisition, nor in the territo- 
rial organization thereof, can any conditions be constitu- 
tionally imposed, or institutions be provided for or estab- 
lished inconsistent with the rights of the people thereof 



72 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

to form a free sovereign state, with the powers and priv- 
ileges of the original members of the confederacy. 

''Resolved, That in organizing a territorial government 
for territory belonging to the United States, the princi- 
ples of self-government upon which our federative system 
rests will be best promoted, the true spirit and meaning 
of the Constitution be observed, and the confederacy 
strengthened, by leaving all matters connected with the 
domestic policy therein to the Legislature chosen by the 
people thereof" 

It will be found, on examination, that these resolutions 
state, in very clear and unambiguous language, the great 
and salutary principle of popular- sovereignty and non-in- 
tervention, as it has been denominated, which was after- 
ward embodied in the Democratic presidential platform 
of 1848, and which was afterward retained therein, with- 
out material modification, so long as the strength of that 
party was maintained, and it was yet able successfully to 
ward off the assailment of sectional factionists and pre- 
serve the peace of the republic. It will be hereafter seen 
that this same principle constituted the leading feature 
of the compromise measures of 1850, and imparted to 
them their chief value. I read the resolutions with at- 
tention, and stated to Mr. Dickinson my warm approval 
of them, when he told me that he had made up his mind 
at some early day to offer them for adoption in the Sen- 
ate, which he accordingly did some two weeks thereafter, 
when a curious and somewhat characteristic scene occur- 
red. Mr. Dickinson's resolutions having been presented, 
were then lying on the clerk's table ready to be printed, 
after which that gentleman, as he had already announced, 



MR. CALHOUN, MR. DICKINSON, AND MR. CASS. 78 

intended calling them np for consideration, when Mr. 
Calhoun walked up to the place where they were depos- 
ited, took them from the table for perusal, and, after hav- 
ing read them over, walked behind the Vice President's 
chair and beckoned me to come to him. I joined him 
accordingly, whereupon he, in a very excited manner, 
called my attention to the phraseology of Mr. Dickinson's 
aforesaid resolutions, and said that they were worse than 
the Wilmot Proviso ; that the constitutional doctrine set 
forth in them was infinitely dangerous, and concluded by 
declaring that he intended to denounce them in the most 
emphatic manner whenever Mr. Dickinson should call 
them from the table. I was most deeply and painfully 
surprised, conceiving, as I did, that the adoption of just 
such resolutions as Mr. Dickinson had offered by the two 
Houses of Congress, and the speedy acquiescence in the 
declaration of principle which they contained, would ef- 
fectually guard the quiet of the country by defeating the 
Wilmot Proviso policy, or the policy of excluding slavery 
from the territories of the Union by congressional action, 
and would thus rescue the South and her cherished lo- 
cal interests from menaced subversion. I expostulated 
mildly and respectfully with Mr. Calhoun against pursu- 
ing the course which he had avowed his determination 
previously to adopt, and, without incurring the hazard of 
inflaming him additionally by informing him that my ad- 
hesion to the resolutions of Mr. Dickinson had been al- 
ready pledged, I proceeded to the seat of General Cass, 
informed him of what had just occurred, and this gentle- 
man, at my instance, went with me to the seat of Mr. 
Dickinson, and united his efforts with mine in persuading 

D 



74 SGYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

him that he would decline pressing the Senate to a vote 
upon his resolutions until a better understanding could 
be had, so as, if possible, to avoid any division among 
those who were united in opposing the adoption of any 
restrictive legislation in regard to slavery in the territo- 
ries. Mr. Dickinson, with a display of that conciliatory 
and obliging temper for which all who know him are 
prepared to give him credit, declared at once that he 
would not urge the Senate to action upon his resolutions 
immediately, that he would call them up in a few days 
for consideration ; and that, after having concisely dis- 
cussed them, as he had it in contemplation to do, and aft- 
er having thus set himself right in the view of his own 
particular constituents, he should be wilhng that the res- 
olutions should then lie upon the table until all interest- 
ed in preserving the peace of the country should be ready 
to take some decided legislation on the matters embraced 
therein. This arrangement being made known to Mr. 
Calhoun, he acquiesced therein, and thus for a short pe- 
riod an extended and unprofitable controversy in the 
Senate upon the territorial question was avoided. It is 
due to Mr. Dickinson to state here that he afterward was 
heard at considerable length in exposition of the true 
meaning of the resolutions which he had offered, and in 
vindication of the principle of non-intervention which they 
set forth, and that he delivered on that occasion a man- 
ly, well-reasoned, and eminently patriotic speech, which 
greatly enhanced his reputation both as a statesman and 
orator. 

I should mention here that, early in the session of 
Congress, Gleneral Cass, in an interview which I had with 



THE NICHOLSON LETTEIi. 75 

him, informed me that he had just received a letter from 
Mr. Nicholson, of Tennessee, then an ardent political 
friend of his, as I certainly was myself, requesting an 
expression of his views on the question just noticed, and 
that he had drawn up a reply thereto, which he desired 
me to read. I read it accordingly, made several com- 
paratively immaterial suggestions in regard to the phra- 
seology, which he kindly consented to modify, when I 
urged him to give publication to the correspondence at 
once, being well satisfied that it was eminently important 
that all proper efforts should be made to get the general 
mind of the country matured as soon as possible upon 
the new and difficult question so ably discussed by Gen- 
eral Cass in that now far-famed letter. He agreed, in 
case his political friends generally in Congress should 
regard the publication of the letter as desirable, to allow 
it to be inserted in the newspapers without delay. I 
then drew up a formal letter to General Cass, asking the 
publication of this letter, to which I took care to obtain 
the signatures of a considerable number of congressional 
members alike from the North and from the South, and 
it was thereupon given to the public. 

Much has been said at different times both in censure 
and in commendation of this letter — far more, perhaps, 
than was either needful or advantageous. It has been 
accused of vagueness and ambiguity by some, while oth- 
ers have not hesitated to speak of it as one of the hap- 
piest emanations of its distinguished author. For my 
own part, though I have never for a moment regretted 
my instrumentality in procuring its publication in the 
manner described, and though I do yet most fully con- 



76 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

cur in the leading idea embodied in it, that the question 
of whether slavery should or should not be allowed to 
exist in the new territories, might safely and properly 
have been "left to the people of the confederacy in their 
respective local governments," yet have I never thought 
that the Nicholson Letter was in all respects so explicit 
in its phraseology as it might have been, or equal, in 
point of mere literary finish, to many of the numerous 
productions of its venerable author's most gifted pen. 
General Cass certainly owed his nomination for the pres- 
idency by the Democratic party in 1848 in some degree 
to the sound and conservative doctrine which he had 
dared thus seasonably to avow, and I shall ever feel 
proud of having zealously sustained him in the presiden- 
tial contest which soon ensued, as the bold and uncom- 
promising champion of the principle o^ non-intervention ; 
which principle was destined, in the perilous crisis of 
1850, to become the distinguishing feature of those meas- 
ures of compromise and adjustment, the introduction and 
successful advocacy of which were to gild the evening 
of Mr. Clay's eventful life with a moral effulgence which 
can never become extinct. 

I should gladly close this chapter with the tender of 
my humble tribute of applause to the venerable octoge- 
narian statesman who has been thus incidentally alluded 
to. No one admires him more than I do, and no one has 
more reason to cherish for him a fervent and solid attach- 
ment. But what can my humble pen record, either of 
his rare moral graces or his eminent public services, 
which is not already familiarly known to his grateful 
and admiring country nen or to the world at large ? He 



GENERAL CASS. 77 

has himself written and spoken so often and so ably, he 
has so long been the honored incumbent of high official 
positions, and has so little at any time sought to conceal 
either his conduct or his motives from the view of men, 
that I might justly despair, were I even sufficiently pre- 
sumptuous to hazard the effort, to add in the least degree 
to the fullness and brightness of that fame which already 
challenges the admiration alike of his own countrymen 
and of the dwellers in other lands, and before the mild 
and simple grandeur of which even the living calumnia- 
tors of party and of faction have been at last completely 
humbled into silence. 

'■^ jSerus in coelum redeasP 



78 SCYLLA AND CHAKYBDIS. 



CHAPTER Y. 

Proceedings upon the Wilmot Proviso during the Congressional Session 
of 184:7, '8. — Mr. Clayton's Compromise Bill, and its unfortunate Defeat 
in tlie House of Kepresentatives. — General Cass as the Presidential 
Candidate of the Democratic Party in 1848. — The Contest between 
himself and General Taylor by no means of a sectional Character. — 
Election of the latter. — Appearance of William L. Yancey at the Balti- 
more Convention of 1848, and the prompt Eejection by that Body of 
his celebrated Protection Proposition. — Unfortunate Division of the 
Strength of the Democratic Party in 1848 between the Hunkers and 
Barnburners, resulting in the Nomination of Martin Van Buren and 
Charles Francis Adams by the Buffalo Convention. — Mr. Gott's Reso- 
lution. — Declaration, as early as 1843, by Messrs. Adams, Slade, Gid- 
dings, and others in Favor of dissolving the Federal Union in the Event 
of the Annexation of Texas. — Inflammatory Address issued by these 
Gentlemen. — Author's first acquaintance with John Quincy Adams and 
his accomplished Lady. — Commendatory Notice of his Life and Char- 
acter. — Parallel between John Quincy Adams and John C. Calhoun. 

Early in the congressional session of 1847, '8, a test 
vote upon the Wilmot Proviso had been taken in the 
House of Kepresentatives, and the proposition embody- 
ing the essential feature of that Proviso had been laid 
upon the table on the motion of Mr. Broadhead, a mem- 
ber from Pennsylvania. This result was looked upon by 
the friends of domestic quiet at the time as a most favor- 
able symptom ; but it was supposed by some of the most 
judicious and experienced personages then in Congress 
that it would be best to guard against future danger by 
having the vexed territorial question submitted for adju- 



WILMOT PROVISO. 79 

dication, at as early a period as practicable, to tlie Su- 
preme Court of the United States ; it being then hoped 
that the decision of that high tribunal, touching the con- 
stitutionality of legislative measures of restriction^ would 
command the respect of the great body of the American 
people, and render the clamors of sectional demagogues, 
whether in the North or in the South, thenceforward pow- 
erless. Accordingl}^, Mr. John M. Clayton, of Delaware, 
after advising extensively with senators and representa- 
tives of the greatest weight and influence in their respect- 
ive states, and whom he knew, at the same time, to be 
solicitous to do what they could to suppress the spirit of 
discord then visibly manifesting itself in various quarters, 
as a member of a select committee of the Senate, to whom 
had been referred the Oregon Bill, reported said bill back 
to the Senate, with amendments establishing territorial 
governments for Kew Mexico and California in addition, 
and containing a clause, likewise, providing, in a very 
careful and precise manner, for the judicial arbitrament 
referred to in relation to all three of said territories. It 
is obvious that, could this bill have become a law, sec- 
tional agitation would have been, at least for a while, sup- 
pressed. Faction had not then grown strong enough, ei- 
ther in the North or in the South, successfully to resist 
the deliberate adjudication of that grave and solemn tri- 
bunal where a Marshall and a Story had so recently sat, 
and where there were still judges to be found worthy of 
the better and purer days of the republic. 

But the Clayton Compromise Bill, after passing the Sen- 
ate by a vote of 33 yeas to 22 nays, was fated to receive 
its quietus in the House from a hand least expected to in- 



80 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

flict a blow so unfortunate. Mr. Stephens, of Georgia, 
having moved that the said bill do lie upon the table, the 
motion prevailed by what was very nearly a sectional 
vote, only eight Southern members having yielded their 
support to it. I have never heard from Mr. Stephens 
himself what particular reasons influenced his course on 
this occasion, but have been repeatedly told, and suppose 
such to have been the case, that this gentleman, having 
maturely arrived at the conclusion that African slavery 
in all the recently acquired territory had been uprooted 
by antecedent Mexican legislation, and that therefore if 
the question propounded by the Clayton Bill should be 
submitted to the Supreme Court, a decision was to be ap- 
prehended which would prove fatal to the policy then so 
warmly cherished by a portion of the Southern people 
of extending slavery into the vacant territories, deemed 
it unsafe to risk the action thereof. I have also heard 
that the course of Mr. Stephens and his distinguished col- 
league from Georgia, Mr. Toombs, in refusing to vote for 
the appropriation of money for carrying into effect the 
then recently ratified treaty with Mexico, was controlled 
by similar views. However this may be, both Mr. Ste- 
phens and Mr. Toombs were for a time very much cen- 
sured by certain overheated persons in the South on ac- 
count of their conduct at this period, and motives were in 
several quarters charged to each of them, the operation of 
which I rejoice never myself to have suspected, and which 
all just-minded men must now admit to have been wholly 
unmerited. I can not doubt now, though, any more than 
I did sixteen years ago, that even had the Supreme Court 
of the republic at that time decided that slavery had no 



CLAYTON COMPROMISE. 81 

legal and authorized existence in New Mexico and Cali- 
fornia, and that even had Congress, acquiescing in that 
decision, refused to adopt enactments for its establishment 
therein, the people of the South would have rested quiet 
under this determination, and the painful scenes through 
which we have been lately passing, as well as the fearful 
agitations which preceded them, might have been happi- 
ly avoided. 

The Democratic party, of which General Cass was now 
the acknowledged chief, and whom they put in nomina- 
tion for the presidency in the Convention held in the city 
of Baltimore in the month of May, 1848, adopted a reso- 
lution at the same time which pledged that party, and 
the candidates chosen to represent it in the pending pres- 
idential contest, to "a vigilant and consistent adherence 
to those principles and compromises of the Constitution 
which are broad enough and strong enough to uphold 
the Union as it was, as it is, and as it shall be, in the full 
expansion of the energies and capacity of this great and 
progressive people." 

At this precise moment indications first clearly display 
themselves, not of ''an irrepressible conflict" between an- 
tagonistic elements imbedded in the Constitution, but be- 
tween two rampant and reckless local factions, neither of 
which was truly friendly to the compromises of the Con- 
stitution or the permanent repose of the republic ; which 
two factions, as will be seen in the sequel, were there- 
after to struggle* with each other and with the two great 
conservative parties then existing ; and while gaining 
from time to time fresh accessions to their respective 
ranks, or losing a portion of their strength temporarily, 

D2 



82 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

from the operation of accidental causes, were in a few 
years to grow strong enough to shake the repubUc to its 
foundation, and to make themselves responsible before 
all generations for the most absurd, unnecessary, and un- 
natural war that the combined wickedness and folly of 
man have ever yet waged upon this terrestrial planet. 
I will make myself more plain on this point by a short 
historic recital. While the Democratic Convention was 
in session in Baltimore, a gentleman from the State of 
Alabama appeared therein, whose name is now familiar 
to the ears of all intelligent men on both sides of the At- 
lantic. I saw this personage in Washington on his way to 
Baltimore, and I learned by accident what was the nature 
of his mission to the latter city. This gentleman (of 
course I am alluding to Mr. William L. Yancey) offered 
to the consideration of the Convention the following res- 
olution : 

^'Resolved, That the doctrine of non-interference with 
the rights of property of any portion of the people of this 
confederacy, be it in the states or territories thereof, hj 
any other than the parties interested in them, is the true re- 
publican doctrine recognized by this body." 

It is evident that it was intended by this adroit move- 
ment to get the whole Democratic party committed against 
any legislation in the territories, either on the part of 
Congress or the local Legislatures, and to prevent even 
any action by conventions called for the purpose of form- 
ing state constitutions with a view to admission into the 
Federal Union in any of said territories, which should be 
of a nature to affect the rights of property in slaves, un- 
less with the consent of the individual owners. A prop- 



MR. YANCEY AND THE TROJAN HORSE. 83 

osition so absurd and dangerous could receive but few- 
votes in a Convention constituted of such intelligent and 
patriotic men as were then assembled in Baltimore, and 
accordingly, out of 252 votes, only S6 persons were found 
radical enough to follow Mr. Yancey's lead. The Trojcm 
horse brought into the Democratic citadel was driven be- 
yond its ramparts before the armed warriors which it in- 
closed could be disgorged from its sides for the perpetra- 
tion of the mischief contemplated. We shall after a while 
see this same cunningly-constructed equine machine make 
its ominous appearance in the cities of Charleston and 
Baltimore under the care of the self-same political groom, 
and shall see it unhappily accorded there a very different 
reception indeed. 

While this attempt was making to transform the Dem- 
ocratic party into a secession faction, another effort was 
in progress, in an opposite quarter, to convert the same 
party into a mere Free-soil organization. I shall cite 
here the short and precise description of the latter move- 
ment, of which the Democratic nominating Convention 
in Baltimore was likewise the chosen theatre, from the 
pages of Mr. Greeley's Conflict. " Two delegations from 
New York presenting themselves to this Convention — 
that of the Free-soilers, Eadicals, or Barnburners, whoge 
leader was Samuel Young, and that of the Conservatives, 
or Hunkers, whose chief was Daniel S. Dickinson — the 
Convention attempted to split the difference by admitting 
both, and giving each half the vote to which the state 
was entitled. This the Barnburners rejected, leaving 
the Convention, and refusing to be bound by its conclu- 
sions. The greater body of them heartily joined in the 



84 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

Free-soil movements, which culminated in a National 
Convention at Buffalo, whereby Martin Yan Buren was 
nominated for President, with Charles Francis Adams, 
of Massachusetts, for Vice-President." 

The last of the series of resolutions adopted at this 
same Buffalo Convention shortly afterward raised, in a 
very sharp and distinct manner, the issue between the 
Eadicals or Sectionalists of the North and the Eadicals 
or Sectionalists of the South, which was to remain a 
standing and unsettled issue for a series of years, and was 
to grow, in the imaginations of some, into an " irrepressi- 
ble conflict," but which, in point of fact, was never either 
a necessary, safe, or expedient issue, and has since 
wrought incalculable mischiefs to the whole land, the 
vestiges of which a century will scarcely be able to efface. 

In the month of December, 1848, a resolution was in- 
troduced into the House of Eepresentatives by Mr. Gott, 
of New York, the object of which was to prohibit the 
trade in slaves in the District of Columbia. This resolu- 
tion, in itself, was perhaps not justly subject to objection 
or censure, but its discussion, in connection with the cir- 
cumstance that certain slaves in the ownership of mem- 
bers of Congress from the South were about that time il- 
legally abstracted from their possessors, begot very fierce 
and acrimonious discussion, and induced a number of the 
Southern senators and representatives then in Washington 
to hold a meeting for consultation purposes, which meeting 
appointed a committee to draft a suitable address to the 
people of the South. This address was drawn up by Mr. 
Calhoun, was exceedingly calm and decorous in its tone, 
indulged in no menacing language whatever, and took the 



FIRST SECESSION PROPOSITION. 85 

ground emphatically in behalf of the South, that all whicli 
the slaveholding section demanded was to he let alone; 
asking no special protection for slaves at the hands of 
Congress, and only desiring that the well-known guaran- 
ties of the Constitution should be faithfully executed. 
Certain public writers have bitterly denounced this pro- 
ceeding, charging even that it was a rank disunion move- 
ment, when it was, in truth, precisely the reverse; and 
yet it is a most noticeable fact that these same writers 
have taken care never to apply the language of reproach 
to John Quincy Adams, William Slade, Joshua E. Gid- 
dings, and others, who, as early as 1848, in an able and 
eloquent address to the people of the free states, did not 
hesitate to declare, in connection with the measure of 
Texan annexation then under contemplation, that "an- 
nexation effected by any act or proceeding of the Federal 
government, or any of its departments, would he identical 
with the dissolution of the TJnion^^ and adding, ''it would 
be a violation of our national compact, its objects and de- 
signs, and the great elementary principles which entered 
into its formation, of a character so deep and fundamen- 
tal, and would be an attempt to eternize an institution 
and a power of a nature so unjust in themselves, so inju- 
rious to the interests and abhorrent to the feelings of the 
people of the free states, as, in our opinion, not only in- 
evitahly to result in a dissolution of the Union^ hut fully to 
justify it ; and we not only assert that the people of the 
free states ought not to suhmit to it,, but we say with confi- 
dence they luoidd not sid)mit to ity 

I seize with pleasure the opportunity presented of ex- 
pressing frankly some opinions which I have long enter- 



86 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

tained in reference to John Quincy Adams. I was not so 
fortunate as to be upon the list of his personal and con- 
fidential friends. I had been introduced to him in the 
lobby of the House of Kepresentatives on one occasion, 
without holding any conversation with him, a circum- 
stance which I shall now forever regret; but I had for 
some years felt for his character and abilities a profound 
respect. On the New Year's day immediately preceding 
his decease I had gone to his hospitable mansion, with a 
large number of his fellow-citizens besides, to pay the 
customary respects to Mrs. Adams and himself The ap- 
pearance of both these venerable personages on that oc- 
casion painfully indicated the pressure of increasing 
years, and both of them went through the tiresome scene 
of receiving the miscellaneous greetings of the thousands 
who had come to do them deserved homage with an evi- 
dent sense of weariness and exhaustion. It had chanced 
that, as early as the year 1824, when I had scarcely at- 
tained to manhood, I had met Mrs. Adams at the Bed- 
ford Springs, in the State of Pennsylvania, wrhither she 
had gone for the restoration of her health, which was 
then supposed to be more or less impaired. The condi- 
tion of my own health at the time had brought me to this 
place also ; and as the fashionable season had not then 
commenced, and there were but few visitants at the 
Springs, I was one of seven or eight persons, including 
Mrs. Adams, her fair niece. Miss Hellen, and her son 
John, who for several weeks had seats at the same pri- 
vate table. A more high-bred, intelligent, and affable 
lady I do not remember at any time to liave encoun- 
tered. The next time I saw Mrs. Adams was at a levee 



MR. AND MRS. ADAMS'. 87 

given by tlie Frencli minister in Washington, just two 
days before the inauguration of her husband as President 
of the United States. Mr. Adams was then President elect 
by the recent action of the House of Kepresentatives. 
He himself was not at the levee, but, as was certainly to 
have been expected, his accomplished better half w^as the 
great centre of attraction — all the political friends of the 
incoming President especially being disposed to evince 
the satisfaction which they felt at the recent promotion 
of their favorite by the rendition of fitting homage to 
Mrs. Adams, and many others being attracted to her 
presence by her own engaging qualities. More than 
twenty years then glided by before I beheld this es- 
teemed lady again, on the New Year's occasion already 
referred to. Nor did I then make known to her that we 
had ever before met, as I could scarcely suppose that she 
would bear in remembrance thus long the humble and 
undistinguished youth with whom she had so accidental- 
ly formed a passing acquaintance at the renowned Penn- 
sylvania watering-place. 

To return to Mr. Adams. I saw him on the day be- 
fore his death, or perhaps two or three days antecedent, 
in the hall of the House of Representatives, on Sunday, 
attending divine service there, and was very much struck 
with his pale and feeble appearance, as I know many oth- 
ers besides to have been. A day or two after his sudden 
decease, a gentleman who has since filled several highly 
respectable official positions, Caleb Lyon, of Lyonsdale, 
called on me at my residence on the Georgetown Heights, 
and handed me for perusal a light and vivacious, but 
highly humorous and piquant poetic effusion, which he 



88 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

told me Mr. Adams had addressed to a charming young 
lady of his acquaintance only forty-eight hours before his 
decease. The aged author had, as Mr. Lyons informed 
me, at the request of the latter, supplied him with a copy 
of these verses, which he seemed, and most naturally too, 
to prize very highly. 

In my judgment, the country has produced but few 
men who have left behind them more multiplied evi- 
dences of elevated patriotism, of private virtue, and of 
varied ability and attainments than the eminent states- 
man of New England to whom I am now referring. This 
much all unprejudiced men must, I think, every where 
admit. I can certainly not suspect myself of being de- 
luded by feelings either of personal partiality or identity 
of political opinions. I was, according to my ability, a 
zealous opponent of the administration of Mr. Adams 
while that administration was yet in progress, and it is 
known by my acquaintances that I was far from approv- 
ing many of his public acts during the closing years of 
his life. But a laborious and dispassionate examination 
of the leading incidents in his long official career has ef- 
fectually vanquished early prejudices, and will now ena- 
ble me to speak of him, I believe, with something of the 
cool impartiality which the future historian may be ex- 
pected to display. More than thirty years have gone by 
since Mr. Adams was defeated by his distinguished mili- 
tary rival for the first offtce in the gift of the American 
people ; and it may be now safely asserted, that never 
since that striking period in American annals, has any 
citizen occupied the chair of state who, while performing 
the varied and complex duties of President, offered clear- 



JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 89 

cr and more numerous proofs of inflexible honesty of 
purpose, a tliorough knowledge of affairs, unremitting in- 
dustry in the performance of official duty, entire exemp- 
tion from mere party or personal prejudice, moderation, 
mingled with firmness, in all critical emergencies, mild 
and unassuming urbanity both in official and social inter- 
course, with a vigilance that never winked, and an ener- 
gy that never knew exhaustion. Mr. Adams was, per- 
haps, upon the whole, the most highly cultivated public 
man, in many respects, that our country has yet known, 
and it is understood that he labored strenuously to the 
last moment of his protracted life to increase his stores of 
useful knowledge. There was no department of science 
of which he was altogether ignorant. He had traversed 
the whole wide domain of general literature ; his knowl- 
edge of history, both ancient and modern, was alike thor- 
ough and minute ; his imagination, like that of Mr. Burke, 
seemed to grow more fertile, vigorous, and resplendent as 
he advanced in years; his memory, as well of men as of 
things, was such as it has been seldom given man to pos- 
sess ; his oratorical powers, not supposed, I have heard, 
to have been very remarkable in early life, were such, 
during the last fifteen years of his congressional exist- 
ence, as compelled even his bitterest political foes to ac- 
quiesce in his claim to be recognized as " The Old Man 
Eloquent," and ever secured to him the unbroken and in- 
terested attention of those who hated him with an acri- 
mony never yet surpassed, but who felt awed into un- 
murmuring respect under the magical influence of his un- 
premeditated and truly electrical utterances. That Mr. 
Adams was much, and unjustly, embittered toward the 



90 SCYLLA AND CHAEYBDIS. 

Soutli in the evening of bis remarkable career, I think 
will hardly be now in any quarter denied. That he had 
some cause for alienatmi and for unkindness seems to me 
to be equally apparent. His opinions in regard to the 
baneful influence of African slavery, and his zealous op- 
position to its future extension into the vacant domain of 
the republic, were not less sincerely entertained than were 
precisely opposite views by his sectional adversaries ; and 
perhaps his prejudices toward the South were not stron- 
ger than those of Mr. Calhoun toward the North, who, 
throughout his whole public career, was never known, -as 
I have learned, to place his feet for a moment upon North- 
ern soil ; and from whose lips I heard the declaration, 
more than once, during the year 1848, when General Tay- 
lor and General Cass were contesting for the presidency 
of the Union, that he would prefer the election to that 
place of any respedaUe Southern i^lanter whatever to any 
man of Northern birth and residence ; though it is possible 
that Mr. Calhoun was, after all, not altogether so averse 
to his fellow-citizens of the free states as he seemed to im- 
agine himself to be, inasmuch as I remember his declar- 
ing to me on one occasion, and about the period just re- 
ferred to, that he should be quite content to see George, 
M. Dallas elevated to the presidency, as his political opin- 
ions were known to be in the main such as Southern men 
were inclined to approve, and as he w^as not only a gen- 
tleman himself, in character, person, and demeanor, but 
also the son of a gentleman — he (Mr. Calhoun) having 
known in former days very intimately, as he said, the 
father of Mr. Dallas, for whom he ever cherished a very 
special esteem and kindness. 



J. Q. ADAMS AND J. C: CALHOUN COMPAEED. 91 

Between John C. Calhoun and John Quincy Adams 
there were remarkable points both of resemblance and 
of dissimilitude. They were both men of undoubted per- 
sonal integrity; alike amiable and exemplary in domes- 
tic and in social life ; fervent lovers of their country, yet 
of decided local bias ; assiduous and untiring in their ap- 
plication to business, and cherishing equally the strictest 
notions oi frugality in the appropriation and expenditure 
of the public money. So far were both these statesmen 
from being personally tainted with /rawcZ, or even sus- 
pected of a disposition to participate in corrupt bargain- 
ing and traffic in connection with concerns of govern- 
ment, that it may be now safely asserted that no man 
who justly suspected himself of gross obliquity of pur- 
pose would have even ventured to challenge familiar in- 
tercourse with either of these sternly upright men. One 
of them was principally a profound logician, while the oth- 
er was a spirited and powerful debater, not pre-eminent- 
ly distinguished for argumentative power, nor yet, indeed, 
wholly deficient therein. Mr. Calhoun was profoundly 
metaphysical in his habits of thought, and had penetrated 
deeply into all the mysterious arcana connected with the 
fundamental principles of government; and he poured 
forth occasionally, in his moments of highest exertion, 
such a continued series of massive and strongly inter- 
linked deductions, constantly advancing from one Alpine 
height of argument to another, that the mind of the or- 
dinary hearer was often most painfully exercised in at- 
tempting to follow his giant intellectual strides, and even 
the reporters themselves complained that, with achmg 
and overpowered brain, they were often compelled to re- 



92 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

linquish in despair tlie arduous and impossible task of 
marking down the successive steps of liis Herculean 
progress. Both Mr. Adams and Mr. Calhoun were mem- 
bers of Mr. Monroe's cabinet, and are understood to have 
there differed, though not unkindly, upon several ques- 
tions of no little magnitude and importance. Mr. Adams 
has left behind him the charge that Mr. Calhoun voted in 
that cabinet for yielding the Executive sanction to what 
is known as the Missouri Compromise; while Mr. Cal- 
houn asserted, more than once, in the Senate, in my hear- 
ing, that his formerly official associate had, in making this 
statement, committed a grave and surprising error of 
memory. Who can believe now that either of these illus- 
trious statesmen intended to violate truth? 

At this moment, when African slavery has been swept 
from the face of this continent by the remorseless scythe 
of war, and when all of us must distinctly recognize 
the fact that every vestige even of its former existence 
must inevitably soon disappear forever, surely, both on 
the one side and on the other, the proper time may be 
regarded as having arrived when even what may have 
been deemed gross errors of judgment in regard to the 
dark and difficult constitutional question involved in 
the policy of restriction may at last be forgiven. When 
such men as Adams, Webster, Clay, Van Buren, Story, 
M^Lano, and Curtis assert the poiver of Congress to pro- 
hibit the entrance of slavery into the territories of the 
Union, and when such men as Calhoun and Douglas, 
Taney, Grier, Campbell, and Nelson assert exactly the 
contrary, it seems to me that ordinary Christian charity, 
and a becoming deference to acknowledged intellectual 



PLEA FOR PEACE. 93 

power and indisputable integrity of character, might 
prompt a decent and civil avoidance of rude and acrimo- 
nious invective, either on the part of the advocates of 
slavery restriction, or on the part of those who were for- 
merly its adversaries. 



9tt SCYLLA AND CHAKYBDIS. 



CHAPTEE VI. 

Session of Congress closing on the 3d of March, 1849. — Important Test 
Question raised by Mr. Douglas, of Illinois, in Connection with the 
Oregon Bill, which was then pending. — Defeat of Mr. Douglas's Prop- 
osition by the unexpected but effective Interposition of Mr, V/ni. II. 
Seward, who had not yet taken his Seat as a Senator from New York. 
— Mr. Seward at that Time opposed to all Compromise of the Slavery 
Question. — Extract from a memorable Speech of his, delivered in the 
United States Senate in the Year 1850, having Relation to this Subject. 
— Mr. Seward's Cleveland Speech in 1848. — Important Extracts there- 
from. — General Taylor's Administration. — Violent Excitement begin- 
ning to rage both North and South upon the Slavery Question, and in 
Connection with the Admission of California. — Unfortunate non-ac- 
tion Policy of General Taylor's Administration. — Alarming Condition 
of the Country. — Election of Messrs, Gwin and Fremont United States 
Senators from California. — Attempt of Colonel Thomas H. Benton to 
revive. his decaying Popularity by becoming the Champion of Califor- 
nian Admission. — Efforts of the Author to defeat this Scheme of self- 
ish Ambition. — Retrospect of Colonel Benton's Attempt, about the 
Close of Mr. Polk's Administration, to bring about the Rescission of 
the Treaty with Mexico, by which all the territorial Domain recently 
acquired would have been lost to the United States but for the Defeat 
of that Attempt. — Signal Defeat of this unpatriotic Scheme, and re- 
markable Particulars connected therewith not heretofore divulged, — 
Colonel Benton deprived in Democratic Caucus of the Chairmanship 
of the Committee of Foreign Affairs in the Senate on the Motion of the 
Author, after a two-days' Struggle, by a Majority of one Vote only. — 
Mr. Benton's extraordinary Attack on Mr. Calhoun and Others in his 
public Speech delivered in Missouri in the Summer of 1848, and Mr. 
Calhoun's overwhelming Response thereto, drawn up at Author's earn- 
est Instance. — Short Sketch of Colonel Benton's public Character, and 
Delineation of his intellectual Qualities. 



OREGON QUESTION — STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 95 

In the last days of the session of Congress terminating 
on the night of the 3d of March, 1849, Mr. Douglas, of 
Illinois, raised an important test question in connection 
with the bill then on its passage for the organization of 
the new Territory of Oregon, by the introduction of the 
following amendment thereto : 

" That the line of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes 
of north latitude, known as the Missouri Compromise line, 
as defined in the eighth section of an act entitled 'An Act 
to authorize the people of the Missouri Territory to form 
a Constitution and state government, and for the admis- 
sion of such state into the Union on an equal footmg 
with the original states, and, to prohibit slavery in certain 
territories, approved March 6th, 1820,' be, and the same 
is, hereby declared to extend to the Pacific Ocean ; and 
the said eighth section, together with the compromise 
therein effected, is hereby revived, and declared to be in 
full force and binding for the future organization of the 
territories of the United States, in the same sense and 
with the same understanding with which it was origin- 
ally adopted." This amendment was carried in the Sen- 
ate, but defeated in the House by an almost strictly sec- 
tional vote ; so that the author of" The American Con- 
flict" would seem to be justified in the following declara- 
tion which he has made in the thirteenth chapter of his 
voluminous and interesting work : "So Oregon became 
a territory consecrated to free labor without compromise 
or counterbalance^ and the Free States gave notice that 
they would not divide with slavery the vast and hitherto 
free territories then just acquired from Mexico." 

In a well-known letter published in the National In- 



96 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

telligencer, a few weeks after the close of the session of 
Congress which had now just terminated, Mr. William H. 
Seward, a newly-elected senator from the State of New 
York, but who had not then taken his seat as such, 
claimed much, and doubtless deserved credit for the suc- 
cess of his efforts on the last night of the session to defeat 
all compromise of the territorial question in the various 
modes proposed, preferring to keep it open for settlement 
by the incoming administration of General Taylor. This 
gentleman, it would seem, had never believed in the value 
of legislative compromises, and afterward, in a speech de- 
livered by him in the month of March, 1850, when the 
compromise enactments of that period were under discus- 
sion, he used the following memorable words: "It is 
insisted that the admission of California shall be attend- 
ed by a compromise of questions which have arisen out 
of slavery. I am opposed to any such compromise.^ in any 
and all the forms in luhich it has been proposed., because, 
while admitting the purity and the patriotism of all from 
whom it is my misfortune to differ, I think all legislative 
compromises which are not absolutely necessary radical- 
ly wrong and essentially vicious. They involve the sur- 
render of the exercise of judgment and conscience on 
distinct and separate questions, at distinct and separate 
times, with the indispensable advantages it affords for 
ascertaining truth ; they involve a relinquishment of 
the right to reconsider in future the decisions of the pres- 
ent on questions prematurely anticipated ; and they are 
acts of usurpation as to future questions of the province 
of future legislators." 

This gentleman had delivered a speech at Cleveland, 



WILLIAM H. SEWARD. 97 

Ohio, in 1848, in which he had doubtless stated his con- 
scientious convictions, the spirit and character of which 
will be made sufficiently evident by the citation of the 
following striking extracts : " There are two antagonist- 
ical elements of society in America, freedom and slavery. 
Freedom is in harmony with our system of government, 
and with the spirit of the age, and is therefore passive 
and quiescent. Slavery is in conflict with that system, 
with justice, and with humanity, and is therefore organ- 
ized, defensive, active, and perpetually aggressive. 

"Freedom insists on the emancipation and elevation 
of labor ; slavery demands a soil moistened with tears 
and blood — freedom a soil that exults under the elastic 
tread of man in his native majesty. 

" These elements divide and classify the American 
people into parties. Each of these parties has its court 
and its sceptre. The throne of the one is amid the rocks 
of the Alleghany Mountains, the throne of the other is 
reared on the sands of South Carolina. One of these 
parties, the party of slavery, regards disunion as among 
the means of defense, and not always the last to be em- 
ployed ; the other maintains the Union of the States 
one and inseparable, now and forever, as the highest 
duty of the American people to themselves, to posterity, 
to mankind." 

I have no acrimonious strictures to apply to what has 
just been cited. Perhaps, though, the eminent person- 
age who delivered, with so much apparent deliberation, 
the celebrated Cleveland speech, will not take sjDecial of- 
fense if I venture to suggest that what is reputed as hav- 
ing fallen from his lips on this very memorable occasion 

E 



^8 SCYLLA AND CHAEYBDIS. 

is not altogether in unison with that fine admonition of 
Mr. Burke's, for which he expresses his own warm re- 
gard in another one of his public addresses: "TFe ought 
to act in political affairs luith all the moderation which does 
not absolutely enervate that vigor ^ and guard that fervency of 
spirit ivithout which the best wishes for the public good must 
evap)oratG in empty speculation^ I will also add here that, 
ten years subsequent to the delivery of this anti-compro- 
mise speech, Mr. Seward, as will be seen hereafter, dis- 
tinguished himself not a little as a champion of compro- 
mise. 

It was now evident — that is to say, on the 4th of March, 
1349 — that a conflict of sectional forces was impending 
which it would require all the vigilance, wisdom, and 
energy of the best and ablest men that the whole repub- 
lic contained to bring to a peaceful termination. Section- 
alism^ fierce and uncompromising, and which some began 
to fear might prove irrepressible also, was now rampant 
alike in the North and in the South, and redoubted chief- 
tains on either side of Mason and Dixon's line were in- 
dustriously organizing their forces for the coming col- 
lision. 

General Taylor's administration, then occupying the 
seats of executive trust in Washington, mainly, as was 
very soon ascertained, under the influence and counsels 
of Mr. Seward, whose energy, zeal, and adroitness as a 
party tactician secured him an ascendency exceedingly 
diificult to counteract, was not slow in marking out the 
policy which it would adopt in regard to the vexed ter- 
ritorial question, which, as has been seen, had been pur- 
posely left in an unsettled condition, with a view to the 



GENEKAL TAYLOR'S NON-ACTION" POLICY. 99 

attainment of ends wbich" the light of subsequent events 
has relieved from the obscurity which originally en- 
shrouded them; The highest historic authority which 
could be cited on this interesting point (Mr. Greeley's 
American Conflict) contains the following precise and 
important statement : 

" The new administration appears to have promptly 
resolved on its course. It decided to invite and favor an 
early organization of both California and New Mexico 
(including all the vast area recently ceded by Mexico, 
apart from Texas proper) as incipient states^ and to urge 
their admission as such into the Union at the earliest 
practicable day. Of course it was understood that, being 
thus organized, in the absence of both slaveholders and 
slaves, they would almost necessarily become/ree statesy 

It will not be denied that this was the very first occa- 
sion in our annals in which an American president had 
regarded himself as justified in intermeddling with terri- 
tories in an incipient and as yet only partially organized 
condition, for the purpose of swelling the number of sov- 
ereign members of the confederacy ; and the precedent 
was justly felt to be one of most alarming import by 
many who were, upon other and independent grounds, 
quite willing to see California enter the Union, by reason 
of the fact that both California and New Mexico were 
yet under strict military rule^ and could be scarcely ex- 
pected to act in this most important transaction with that 
independence and exemption from exterior influence 
which is in all such cases confessedly so eminently de- 
sirable. In response to a special congressional call for 
information on this subject, the frank and outspoken sol- 



100 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

dier tlieii in tlie executive chair did not hesitate to con- 
fess that he had declared to the people of the territories 
in question his "desire that they should, if prepared to 
comply with the requisitions of the Constitution of the 
United States, form a plan of a state Constitution, and 
submit the same to Congress, with a prayer for admission 
into the Union as a state." It was not to be expected 
that the territories thus encouraged to act would long de- 
lay the putting on of the wedding garment^ preparatory to 
the political banquet to which they had been thus affec- 
tionately invited. General Riley, then military govern- 
or of California, under instructions from Washington, is- 
sued a proclamation calling into existence a convention 
of the people of California, the delegates to which body 
were in a few weeks elected, after which, with all practi- 
cable dispatch, they came together, and proceeded to 
frame their state Constitution. It must be confessed 
that no one at all acquainted with the general character 
of the soil in California, and its 'extraordinary and wide- 
ly-diffused mineral riches, would at all censure the enter- 
prising and astute population of that fair and teeming re- 
gion for preferring to exclude slave labor ^together from 
their newly-organized state, to the introduction of myr- 
iads of the dusky sons of Africa, probably under the con- 
trol and direction of selfish and mercenary owners, into 
the most attractive and profitable mining districts, thus 
crowding out the enterprising and hardy pioneers from 
the old states, and stamping upon their honest industrial 
labors the inevitable brand of discredit. 

It is a curious and not altogether uninstructive fact, 
that of the two United States senators from the new State 



FREMONT AND GWIN, UNITED STATES SENATORS. 101 

of California, Messrs. Fremont and Gwin, the latter a 
large slaveholder at the time in the State of Mississippi, 
was the mover and most prominent advocate of the slav- 
ery 'proliihition clause in the new Constitution, while his 
senatorial colleague, destined to be in a few years the se- 
lected candidate of the Eepublican party for the presi- 
dency, was by far the most zealous opijonent of that 
clause ! ! 

During the summer of 1819, Colonel Thomas H. Ben- 
ton, who is well known to have been originally an open 
opposer of General Taylor's plan providing for the ad- 
mission of California and New Mexico as states into the 
Federal Union, was seen to undergo a very sudden and 
mysterious change, and commenced making in the State 
of Missouri earnest and laborious speeches in favor of 
that same policy. Circumstances presently to be nar- 
rated had awakened in my mind serious and painful dis- 
trust touching the movements and designs of this re- 
markable personage, whose bitter, but somewhat covert 
opposition to Mr. Polk's administration (growing mainly 
out of the fact that this gentleman had declined appoint- 
ing him lieutenant general during the Mexican war over 
the head of General Scott, and thus enabling him to mo- 
nopolize the glory of conquerir^g Mexico), had been for a 
short time sufficiently manifest to those officially associ- 
ated with him. His astounding attempt to procure the 
nuUification of the Mexican treaty, and thus deprive the 
United States of the whole of that valuable domain re- 
cently acquired in California and New Mexico, by an ex- 
traordinary and unprecedented proceeding, the history of 
which has not been heretofore sufficiently made known, 



102 . SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

induced me to feel exceedingl}^ anxious, and, as I yet 
think, very naturally, to aid in defeating his new scheme 
of reviving a decaying popularity by putting himself for- 
ward as the most prominent advocate of the measure of 
Californian admission, which it was already quite easy to 
perceive could nof but prove otherwise than one of great, 
as well as deserved popularity. With such views I wrote 
a newspaper article addressed to a very eminent citizen 
of Virginia (not at all deserving to be inserted here, but 
to which the accidents of legislative contestation subse- 
quently imparted a sort of semi-documentary stamp), in 
which I endeavored, in a very free and formal manner, 
to guard the public mind of the country against Mr. Ben- 
ton's subtle devices, after which I addressed an earnest 
letter to Mr. Calhoun, who had been most virulently as- 
sailed by Mr. Benton a few weeks before in one of his 
public speeches in Missouri, communicating to him intel- 
ligence of this attack upon him, and urging him to lose 
no time in vindicating himself against what I could not 
but recognize as unprovoked and unmerited aspersions. 
Mr. Calhoun very soon wrote the desired response, a 
proof-sheet copy of which having been transmitted to me 
by its author, with a request that I would cause the same 
to be inserted in the Union newspaper in Washington ; 
it made its appearance accordingly, without delay, in the 
columns of that journal. In my letter to Mr. Calhoun 
already referred to, I urged him most warmly to be him- 
self the introducer and chief champion at the coming ses- 
sion of Congress of the measure of admission, giving him 
my reason for supposing that California would be, and 
ought to be admitted, and suggesting the impolicy^ as well 



JOHN" C. CALHOUN — THOMAS H. BENTON. 103 

as injustice of opposing that measure, and the earnest de- 
sire which I felt that California should come into the 
Union, if possible, under Southern auspices^ with a view 
to guarding against the invigoration of the sectional op- 
position to the South already, to some extent, existing, 
and with a view also to the building up for himself a 
truly national standing and popularity, which I thought 
could not be otherwise than beneficial to the whole coun- 
try. Though Mr. Calhoun consented, as has been stated, 
to write in response to Mr. Benton as I had requested, 
and gave to the world on that occasion the most finished 
and telling specimen of dialectic power that had ever em- 
anated from his pen, yet I regret to say that he declmed 
altogether the support of the admission policy, express- 
ing the opinion that California, if allowed to enter the 
Union, would eventually become an enemy to the South 
and her cherished interests, and would completely de- 
stroy the political equipoise then so happily existing be- 
tween the states of the North and those of the South. 
He added that he should have no objection whatever to 
seeing Utah admitted, since the Convention which had 
just held its session in that territory for the purpose of 
providing a state Constitution had refused to adopt a 
clause prohibitory of slavery, and inasmuch as he had 
satisfactorily learned that there were already in Utah 
some five or six hundred slaves of African derivation. 
Thus this negotiation ended ; but I did not desist still 
from the efforts which I had initiated to secure the ad- 
mission of California in a- manner not to give increased 
irritation to the South ; and hoping still that Mr. Calhoun 
might be induced to change his mind in regard to this 



104 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

important matter before the approaching session of Con- 
gress would commence, I drew up a long and compre- 
hensive bill covering the whole territorial subject, which, 
after submitting the same to a few judicious and discern- 
ing friends, and obtaining their approval of it, I offered 
to Mr. Calhoun, when he reached Washington, for his ex- 
amination, declaring to him that I did not wish person- 
ally to move in the affair, but did still most intensely de- 
sire that he should take the lead on the question of ad- 
mission, believing, as I did, that members of Congress 
from the South would cordially acquiesce in any policy 
touching California and the other new territories which 
Mr. Calhoun might judge wise and proper. He returned 
the bill which. I had handed to him in a day or two, 
promising still to examine its provisions at some early 
moment more carefully ; but finding him afterward reso- 
lutely opposed to the admission of California upon any 
terms whatever, with great chagrin I relinquished all 
hope of his complying with my wish in regard to this im- 
portant matter, and afterward brought forward the same 
bill in the Senate, as the Congressional Globe of that pe- 
riod will attest. 

Before I proceed farther with congressional details in 
connection with this very exciting question, I will now 
narrate in a very concise manner the particulars of the 
extraordinary conduct of Colonel Benton, which has been 
above referred to, at the close of Mr. Polk's administra- 
tion, and which I am sure it is high time that all America 
should learn. 

One morning, a gentleman of remarkable astuteness 
and penetration, and who had been formerl}^ a member 



ATTEMPT TO ABROGATE THE MEXICAN TREATY. 105 

of Congress, but whose name it is needless that I should 
at present disclose, called upon me at my room in the 
Capitol, and laid before me facts showing very con- 
clusively that Colonel Benton was then in collusion 
with the Mexican minister resident in "Washington for 
the purpose of procuring the rescission of the Mexican 
treaty, as heretofore indicated. I learned from him that 
these individuals were constantly interchanging visits, 
and that official letters signed by the Mexican minister 
had been received at the Department of State, wherein 
Mr. Buchanan was presiding at the time, urging, with sin- 
gular ingenuity and force, that the treaty with the Mexi- 
can republic, by the instrumentality of which California 
and New Mexico had both been obtained, was of no 
earthly validity whatever, by reason of the fact that 
what was somewhat loosely called a 'protocol — an official 
paper subscribed by the ministers of the United States 
who had previously negotiated the treaty — was so palpa- 
bly repugnant to the provisions thereof, as necessarily, if 
enforced, to effect its abrogation. I was farther advised 
that Mr. Benton would very soon introduce this import- 
ant subject in the Senate while that body should be in 
executive session, and would offer a resolution for adop- 
tion correspondent with the views set forth in the letters 
of the Mexican minister to the Secretary of State, which 
have been already referred to. This extraordinary dis- 
closure, fortified as it was by numerous surrounding cir- 
cumstances, awakened in my bosom mingled feelings of 
indignation and of alarm. Great national interests seem- 
ed to be in jeopardy. Mr. Benton's peculiar political po- 
sition at the time (that gentleman not having yet lost all 

E2 



106 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

his former influence with the Democratic party, and hav- 
ing done much, of h^te, of a nature to soften down and 
concihate his former party adversaries the Whigs), to- 
gether with the weight and influence which he still pos- 
sessed in the country at large, furnished, as I thought at 
the time, and as I yet think, ground for serioua anxiety 
and apprehension. After consultation with several con- 
siderate friends, being mindful of the noted test to which 
Hamlet is described as subjecting his usurping uncle by 
an extemporized dramatic entertainment fitted to devel- 
op aught of " rottenness" which might perchance be lurk- 
ing " in the state of Denmark," I delivered one morning 
in the Senate a short address (which may be found in the 
Congressional Globe of that period), accompanying the 
same, as far as I was capable, with appropriate glances 
and gestures, so as at least to shadow forth to any guilty 
conscience which might chance to be in presence the pain- 
ful suspicions which I had conceived, and "probe it" also, 
if possible, " to the very quick." This address concluded 
with the following well-known couplet from Pope : 

"Who would not smile, if such a man there be? 
Who would not blush, \i Atticus were he?" 

Whether there was real "blenching" or not in the dis- 
trusted quarter, I shall leave it to those present on the 
occasion specified to decide. I was, I confess, exceeding- 
ly desirous that the aged senator from Missouri should 
desist from the execution of his scheme of territorial 
spoliation, if he could be induced to do so either by his 
own fears of personal disgrace or by the persuasions of 
friends ; and I awaited the result of events with patience. 



MR. BENTON — MR. BUCHANAN. 107 

though certainly not without carrying forward diligently 
the scrutiny which I had already commenced. In a day 
or two thereafter Mr. Polk ceased to be president, and 
General Taylor became domiciliated at the White House. 
Having unlimited confidence in the love of country 
which glowed in the pure bosom of this time-worn chief 
tain, and entertaining a high personal esteem for the^ 
members of his cabinet, I resolved to make an early ap- 
peal to those then in power to aid, with whatever of influ- 
ence they possessed, in defeating any measure which Mr. 
Benton might introduce in the Senate looking to the do- 
ing away of the Mexican treaty. Before this intention 
could be fully executed, two Democratic senators from 
the "West, whose names, were I to mention them, would 
not fail to command the most profound homage, came to 
me at the Capitol, directly from the presence of Mr. Bu- 
chanan, bearing to me a message from that gentleman 
requesting that I should lose no time in calling upon 
him, for the purpose of being made acquainted by him 
with all the particulars connected with the correspond- 
ence which had several weeks before taken place between 
this personage as Secretary of State and the Mexican 
minister. It should be here observed that Mr. Buchanan 
yet occupied the State Department, having been request- 
ed by General Taylor to continue therein until it might 
become convenient to Mr. Clayton, then otherwise much 
occupied, to relieve him. I will here mention an addi- 
tional fact, which I could not consider altogether imma- 
terial. The two senators who had thus summoned me to 
the presence of Mr. Buchanan had been, up to that time, 
the ardent admirers of Mr. Benton, and had frankly de- 



108 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

clared, in this very interview, that they had before that 
time been often disposed to find fault with what they had 
deemed my over-censorious course toward Mr. Benton. 
The interview with Mr. Buchanan did accordingly take 
place, but barely in time to prevent mischievous conse- 
quences in the Senate. The adroit and skillful engineer 
^had already commenced his work in that body with all 
the artistic skill which his great Parliamentary experi- 
ence could put in use, and it had now become an intense- 
ly interesting question whether or not this same wily en- 
gineer could be " hoist on his own petard^ Mr. Buchanan 
informed me that he felt well satisfied that Greneral Tay- 
lor and his cabinet fully approved the position which he 
had assumed in the correspondence already referred to in 
regard to the " protocol ;" that they would do all in their 
power (as he thought) to uphold the treaty, and to pre- 
serve the national domain against the dangers to which 
it stood exposed from the course of Mr. Benton ; but 
suggested, in addition, that he and I should visit the 
AVhite House in the morning anterior to the meeting of 
the Senate (then in special session), and procure, if we 
could, a formal official declaration from the President or 
his expected premier, Mr. Clayton, which, when exhibited 
to the Whig members of the Senate, would advise them 
fully as to the views and wishes of the existing adminis- 
tration. Early on the following morning, before yet the 
hour of ten o'clock had arrived, Mr. Buchanan and my- 
self were on our way to the presidential mansion. Just 
as the carriage which was coliveying us thither drove op- 
posite the Department of State, Colonel James Watson 
Webb, formerly editor of the New York Courier and 



JOHN M. CLAYTON — JAMES WATSOX WEBB. 109 

Enquirer, made liis appearance, told us he knew what 
was taking us to the presence of General Taylor, and re- 
quested to be allowed to accompany us upon our patriotic 
mission. To this proposition we cheerfully acceded, and 
our carriage took us without delay to the place of desti- 
nation. "When we reached the White House we learned 
that the cabinet was then in session. We sent our names 
to Mr. Clayton, and asked for an immediate interview, 
which having been accorded to us, we proceeded to lay 
the matter so near our hearts before this courteous and 
accomplished personage. His conduct on the occasion 
was most proper and becoming. He told us that the 
subject of the treaty and the protocol had been before the 
President and his cabinet ; that they could see no repug- 
nance whatever between the said treaty and the protocol. 
He said he had thoroughly examined the official corre- 
spondence which had taken place, and that he was pre- 
pared to endorse most fully every line and sentence in 
Mr. Buchanan's letters to the Mexican minister. After 
this declaration had been made, I requested Mr. Clayton 
to embody, or cause to be embodied in a short resolution, 
the views which he entertained on this important subject, 
and accordingly he dictated such a resolution, which one 
of our company took down in pencil-marks from his lips. 
This resolution I took back to the Senate, and exhibited 
it to several Whig members of that body, who seemed 
very much gratified therewith ; but, to make assurance 
^Ulouhle siire,^^ the then attorney general, the Hon. Eev- 
erdy Johnson, was dispatched by General Taylor to the 
Senate, and, long before the discussion of the morning- 
was commenced, this great question of state was virtualy 



110 SCYLLA AND CHAEYBDIS. 

settled. Mr. Webster came to me, I well remember, in 
his most solemn and formal manner, and declared, in 
more zealous and pointed language than he was at all 
accustomed to use on ordinary occasions, his disgust and 
indignation at what he understood Mr. Benton was at- 
tempting to effect, and assured me that there was no 
Whig member of the Senate who would not vote with 
the Democratic members of that body in defense of our 
territorial interests under the treaty. Not knowing 
whether yet the injunction of secrecy in relation to the 
proceedings then pending has been removed, I shall only 
say now that, whatever may have been the nature of the 
proposition then pending in the Senate, there were only 
two speeches made in that body — one in favor of and 
one in opposition to this proposition, and that the Senate 
then voted it down at once, luith only one dissentient vote. 
Whose vote that was I leave to be conjectured. 

It will surprise no one now, I presume, to learn that I 
considered myself justified by such facts as I have men- 
tioned, and which various of the senators then upon the 
stage of action, and who yet survive, are prepared to at- 
test, in doing what I could legitimately and fairly do to 
weaken Mr. Benton's influence in the country, and to cir- 
cumscribe his capacity for public mischief Hence my 
assailment of him in the newspapers in the summer of 
1849, as already stated, and my anxiety to prevent his 
obtaining the lead on the California question of admis- 
sion. But my opposition to Mr. Benton did by no means 
stop here. I determined to deal him an additional blow, 
which, if the Democratic members of the Senate should 
prove as mindful of the honor of the country, as well as 



OFFICIAL mSGKACE OF COLONEL BENTON. Ill 

of their own individual dignity, as I hoped, could not 
but be fatal to him. On the first day of the approaching 
session of Congress I determined to enter the Democratic 
senatorial caucus, which w^as uniformly convoked on 
that day, and move that Mr. Benton, upon charges which 
I was prepared to array against him, should be discon- 
tinued as chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, 
well knowing that if this movement should be successful 
in caucus, the Democratic party having a decided ma- 
jority in the Senate, Mr. Benton would be of necessity 
ousted from his position as the head of that important 
committee. In point of fact, I afterward pursued this 
very course. I moved in caucus that William E. King, 
of Alabama, should be chairman of the Committee on For- 
eign Affairs instead of Thomas H. Benton, which motion, 
after two mornings spent in earnest controversy, was cai- 
ried by a majority of a single vote; soon after which Mr. 
Benton resigned his place as a member of said commit- 
tee. Whether these proceedings had any influence in 
Missouri afterward in securing Mr. Benton's defeat for 
senatorial re-election from that state, which occurred dur- 
ing the subsequent winter, I have never specially in- 
quired, and it is not at all important now that this ques- 
tion should be settled. It is a respected maxim that the 
dead should not he spoken of hut luith commendation. I am 
not at all disposed to violate this maxim upon the pres- 
ent occasion ; but, as Mr. Benton was accustomed to ob- 
serve when living, ^^ The truth of history must he vindica- 
tedr 

I shall dechne saying any thing as to the motives by 
which he was actuated in this strange affair of the proto- 
col, nor shall I now descant upon the moral qualities. 



112 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

whether good or bad, which entered into his character, 
either as a public man or as a private citizen. He was 
certainly a man of much natural strength of intellect, 
and of a most capacious and retentive memory. He pos- 
sessed much knowledge of various kinds, and as a writer 
of pure and nervous English he had few equals. He was 
exceedingly deficient in extemporaneous oratorical pow- 
er, had a bad voice, a forbidding, dogmatical, and un- 
conciliatory manner, showed but little respect for the 
feelings of others whom he met in debate, and, as a pol- 
itician, was not over-scrupulous as to the means which he 
employed for the attainment of his ends. He never spoke 
in the Senate except upon the most deliberate prepara- 
tion, and then always from copious notes, and his princi- 
pal speeches were generally written out in full before their 
delivery. While General Jackson was in the presiden- 
tial office, and Mr. Blair was editing the Globe, he was 
eminently successful as a party leader in the Senate. 
When another Pharaoh arose "who did not know Jo- 
seph," and when the Globe was fated to give way to the 
Union, under the direction of the venerable Thomas 
Eitchie, the renowned champion of the celebrated ex- 
punging resolution seemed to have forever lost his polit- 
ical eqid])oise^ and his conduct as a senator was thence- 
forth such as not only to grieve his remaining friends 
most sorely, but seriously to impair his legislative useful- 
ness, as well as to-enfeeble his claims to influence the 
opinions and conduct of such as had looked up to him 
at one time with sentiments of profound esteem and ad- 
miration. In view of these sad and painful scenes, we 
may well exclaim with Mr. Burke, ^''What shadows we 
are, and ivhat shadoivs ive pursue P'' 



GENERAL TAYLOK'S NON -ACTION POLICY. 113 



CHAPTER VII. 

Review of General Taylor's non-action Policy.— Painful and exciting 
Rumors in regard to the Instrumentalities employed by him to carry 
that Policy into Operation. — Intense Alarm awakened among Patri- 
ots as to the Fate of the Country. — Mr. Clay leaves his own Home, 
and comes to Washington upon a Mission of Pacification. — He is met 
upon his arrival there with general Cordiality and Respect. — Mr. Ben- 
ton attempts to inveigle him into a false Position in regard to the Meas- 
ure of admitting California, and is for a time successful. — Mr. Clay's 
Programme of Adjustment, and the "five bleeding Wounds." — This 
Gentleman severs his Alliance with Mr. Benton, and becomes the Cham- 
pion of the famous Omnibus Scheme. — His magnanimous waver of cer- 
■ tain abstract Opinions with a View to general Conciliation. — Pirst meet- 
ing of the Nashville Convention. — Great Excitement consequent npon 
its Proceedings. — Anti-slavery Movements about the same Period, and 
Mr. Seward's anti-compromise Si^eech. — Resolution introduced by the 
Author, several weeks before, for the raising of the famous Committee 
of Thirteen, finally pushed to a Vote at the Instance of Mr. Cass. — Emi- 
nently patriotic Conduct of Mr. Webster on tliis Occasion. — Resolution 
finally carried, — Mr. Clay appointed Chairman thereof, who speedily 
brings in his Report, upon which an animated Discussion occurs. 

The scheme of policy wMch, in the summer of 1849, 
it was generally known that the administration of Gen- 
eral Taylor had deliberately adopted, by which it was ex- 
pected that by an adroit and subtle process, for which 
there had been then no example, slavery would be at 
once and forever shut out from the territories recently 
acquired (it being " understood," as is now frankly con- 
fessed, " that being thus organized, in the absence of both 
slaveholders and slaves, they would almost necessarily be- 



114 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

come free states"), leaves no ground for surprise that, in 
the condition of the popular mind at that 23eriod exist- 
ing throughout the South, intense excitement and alarm 
should have every where prevailed. It was discovered 
that, within a month or two, in some mysterious manner, 
one of the great parties to the '''' irreipressihle conflict^'' 
which had been so oracularly announced, had already 
put on the armor of war and regularly taken the field ; 
that all the appliances which government could muster 
were ready to be used, yea, were heing at that moment used 
to render that party ultimately triumphant ; and that the 
boasted equiponderance of power upon which the South 
had so long confidently relied was about to disappear for- 
ever. Poi^ular meetings were immediately called in ev- 
ery Southern state, and indeed almost in every neighbor- 
hood of each state, for the purpose of remonstrating re- 
spectfully but earnestly against the menaced infraction 
of slaveholding rights. Inflammatory resolutions were 
adopted at all these meetings, and from some of them 
strong and eloquent addresses went forth, calculated to 
produce alarm, distrust, and alienation in bosoms where 
quiet, and confidence, and fraternal affection had been 
formerly wont to dwell. Grave and thoughtful states- 
men were grieved and astonished at the prospect of com- 
ing evils; and fierce sectional demagogues, the pest of 
all extended republics, were every where engaged in fan- 
ning the embers of dissatisfaction ; ambitiously hoping, 
doubtless, that in the whirlwind which seemed to be now 
coming on, even such miscreants as themselves might 
perchance be tossed into positions of airy and lofty eleva- 
tion. The whole republic was convulsed as by a moral 



IIENKY CLAY, THE POLITICAL NEPTUNE. 115 

earthquake, and desponding patriots began to look for- 
ward to those scenes of civil ruin against which Wash- 
ington in his Farewell Address had so impressively warn- 
ed his countrymen. In looking back now to that fearful 
period in American annals, the votary of classic lore is 
almost irresistibly reminded of that almost unequaled 
picture in the ^neid in which the bard of Mantua de- 
scribes with so much vivacity and force the fierce and 
tumultuous waves of the tempest-raised ocean. For our 
consolation, amid the perils which his imagination con- 
jures into existence, the great Latin poet presently brings 
forward Neptune, with his all-potent trident, to compose 
the vexed waves of his watery domain — likening the sea- 
god, in his auspicious coming, to " some man of earth re- 
vered for his purity and worth," who, suddenly present- 
ing himself to the view of the seditious multitude stirred 
up to violent commotion, "by persuasive eloquence rules 
their passions and calms their breasts." So was it pre- 
cisely in 1850, when the venerable Henry Clay, of Ken- 
tucky, left his own loved and peaceful home upon a sa- 
cred mission of peace, and visited the Capitol of the re- 
public, where he beheld, on his arrival, all the elements 
of discord and unfriendly feeling fiercely at work. He 
at once addressed himself to the mighty task before him, 
and happily, in a few months, by the employment of mild 
and pacific expedients, saved his country from that threat- 
ened "conflict" which, most fortunately for that same 
country, this admired statesman did not by any means 
regard as of a hopelessly " irrepressihy character. 

From the day of Mr. Clay's arrival in Washington, it 
was evident that all in Congress who were the sincere 



116 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

and enlightened friends of the Union recognized him as 
their leader. All seemed to accord to him the purest and 
most patriotic motives ; though it is true that there were 
selfish and designing factionists to be- found here and 
there, who, perceiving that he was in the way of their 
own cherished schemes, affected to apprehend mischief 
to the public weal from his influence. Mr. Webster 
met him in the most cordial and deferential manner, as 
was due to his superior years; and I saw Mr. Calhoun, 
after consulting a friend or two about him touching the 
propriety of his making the first approach to one from 
whom, a few years earlier, he had parted with some un- 
kindness, advance with manly stride toward the seat of 
the great statesman of the West and offer to him his most 
affectionate -salutations. I had the honor of being pre- 
sented to Mr. Clay, in his own parlor at the ISTational Ho- 
tel, by my venerated friend from Michigan, General Cass. 
The meeting between these two illustrious citizens was 
marked with much affection and respect on both sides, 
and it would seem that both of them even then antici- 
pated the new ties of enduring affection which were soon 
to spring up between them. That the relations between 
Mr. Clay and Greneral Cass did in a few weeks grow most 
kind and confidential is known already to many. It is 
perhaps not so well known to all, though, or is at least 
perhaps not now so vividly remembered by them, that 
each of these personages displayed, in the progress of a 
few months, a most magnanimous and self-sacrificing tem- 
per toward the other. T recollect well that when, on one 
occasion, the warm political friends of General Cass, an- 
ticipating that much popularity would accrue to the indi- 



CLAY AND CASS — THEIR MAGNANIMITY. 117 

vidual who should be most conspicuous in effecting a fair 
and honest settlement of existing sectional difficulties, 
urged this gentleman to allow his name to be used in 
connection with the position of chairman of the celebrated 
Committee of Thirteen, suggesting that, should Mr. Clay 
be allowed to become chairman of that committee, he 
would, in all probability, be elevated to the presidency at 
the next election, General Cass at once declared, "Well, 
be it so ; Mr. Clay is entitled on every ground to be the 
chairman of the committee; he alone can rescue the 
country from its present dangers; and if he shall suc- 
ceed in doing it, I shall vote for him for President with 
the greatest pleasure myself" In the winter of 1851, '2, 
I heard Mr. Clay repeatedly declare that, while Mr. Fill- 
more was his first choice for president, in the event of 
this latter gentleman's failing to obtain the nomination 
of his party, .he should then prefer General Cass for the 
presidency to any man in the republic. These rare ex- 
amples of disinterestedness and elevated patriotism are 
worthy to be borne eternally in the minds of their coun- 
trymen of the present and of all future generations. 

Mr. Clay had hardly reached Washington City before 
Mr. Benton, not recognizing, as did all others, the pecul- 
iar sacredness of his mission to the capital, made early 
and prodigious efforts to appropriate his well-earned in- 
fluence and popularity to the accomplishment of his own 
favorite designs. With this view he very soon flattering- 
ly informed him that he and his son-in-law. Colonel Fre- 
mont, had determined to rely mainly iipon his efforts for 
securing the early admission of the newly -formed State 
of California, and requested him, indeed, to initiate the 



118 SQYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

measure. Mr. Clay, as lie afterward frankly acknowl- 
edged, had not duly examined all the surrounding cir- 
cumstances, nor become convinced yet, as he subsequent- 
ly was, that the attempt to force hastily and prematurely 
the act of admission as a separate measure, while the oth- 
er outstanding questions growing out of slavery remained 
unadjusted, might add seriously to the existing troubles 
of the country, and be productive of many injurious con- 
sequences of a permanent character. He agreed, there- 
fore, to introduce the bill as requested, and at an early 
day ; which he in fact afterward did, and in a most grace- 
ful and impressive manner. 

It was evident to many members of both Houses of 
Congress, in the condition of things then existing, that, 
for the reasons already stated, any attempt to bring 
California in as a separate measure would be productive 
of much mischievous wrangling and contention in these 
bodies, and might, in addition, produce far more seri- 
ous consequences elsewhere. Mr. Clay, in a very elo- 
quent speech delivered by him in the Senate, had refer- 
red io jive bleeding luounds then existing in the body pol- 
itic, and had insisted upon the necessity of stanching all 
of them as soon as possible. He was known, when he 
used this figurative language, which has at different times 
been the subject of so much pointless criticism, to have 
had in view the five following points : 1st, the admission 
of California ; 2d, the settlement of the Texan boundary; 
3d, an adequate amendment of the existing Fugitive Slave 
Law; 4th, the doing away with the traffic in slaves in the 
District of Columbia ; 5th, the establishment of a terri- 
torial government for all the domain acquired from Mex- 



THE OMNIBUS BILL. 119 

ico outside of the boundaries to be assigned to California. 
He was sincerely anxious to settle all these questions, and 
was fully resolved to leave none of them open, if he could 
avoid it, to prove thereafter a source of needless irritation. 
His desire was t^ adjust all the points of dispute existing 
between the two sections upon equitable and satisfactory 
principles, and leave no heart-burning or discontent re- 
maining in any quarter. He did not perceive at first 
that, in order to effect a settlement so comprehensive as 
he desired, it would be indispensable to coiijoin the vari- 
ous measures, so as to get through Congress several en- 
actments which were in themselves not a little odious to 
a portion of the states and people of the Union, by force 
of the overwhelming popularity in certain other states, of 
the measure of Californian admission ; and that there was 
great danger, if California should be admitted, as Mr. Ben- 
ton and others were so unwisely and illiberally urging, as 
a separate measure, and in advance of all the other enact- 
ments the adoption of which he aimed to procure, that the 
other enactments referred to, or at least some of the most 
essential of them, might thereafter never pass at all. Be- 
sides, he had been authentically informed that the state of 
party feeling in the House of Eepresentatives was daily 
getting more and more excited and acrimonious, and that 
some scenes had already occurred in that body which more 
or less portended even the spilling of blood in unfrater- 
nal strife — an occurrence which he could not but feel 
might be made to result in extended civil war. Under 
these circumstances, Mr. Clay came to the conclusion that 
a smgle measure of cor)iprortiise and adjustment^ embracing 
all the contested points, would be the most \vise and sal- 



120 ' SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

utarj expedient which could be devised ; and he was 
farther persuaded bj certain friends of either House of 
Congress in whose good sense and disinterested patriot- 
ism he reposed the utmost confidence that no good could 
possibly arise, but, on the contrary, in^, all probability, 
much of evil, from pertinaciously insisting that Congress 
should come to a distinct vote upon the two abstract ques- 
tions touching the constitutional authority of the Federal 
government to abolish slavery in the District of Colum- 
bia, and to exclude it from the territories. Never did 
Mr. Clay evince more true statesmanship, more elevated 
patriotism, and a nobler moral courage, than he did in 
consenting to change his attitude in the manner men- 
tioned, in view of all the imperious considerations which 
have been specified ; and yet this, the noblest act perhaps 
of his long public life, has been the subject of most vehe- 
ment and acrimonious reproach in numerous quarters, 
and was, in a short time also, to bring him once more 
into fierce collision with his ancient antagonist, Mr. Ben- 
ton, with whom he had been at variance for some twenty 
years or more, until they had been persuaded, about two 
years antecedent, by mutual friends, to resume their ear- 
ly relations of kind social intercourse. 

As soon as Mr. Clay consented to take this course, I 
lost no time in bringing forward a resolution in the Sen- 
ate which proposed to raise a committee of thirteen, to 
which should be referred the several sets of resolutions 
embracing the subject of slavery then pending in the 
Senate ; and I continued to urge, morning after morning, 
the adoption of the resolution for the formation of said 
committee for several weeks before success was eventual- 
ly achieved. 



NASHVILLE CONVENTION. 121 

Meanwliile several movements were in progress else- 
where, of which I deem it expedient now to take a pass- 
ing notice. 

The excitement in the South had culminated in the as- 
semblage of the celebrated Nashville Convention, where 
much was said and done which seemed indicative of 
coming troubles. Another session of the same body was 
expected soon to occur, which might or might not, ac- 
cording to the course of events, yet painfully uncertain, 
adopt extreme measures for the preservation of cherished 
Southern rights, supposed by not a few to be in danger 
of speedy immolation. - In another and opposite quarter 
the Abolition caldron was beginning most ominously to 
seethe and bubble, emitting copious eifusions of cloudy 
vapor, and was in fact almost ready to overboil from the 
intense heat which the breath of fierce agitators, with ca- 
pacious, bellows-like lungs, was fast kindling beneath it. 
The doors of Faneuil Hall had not yet refused to turn 
upon their "golden hinges" to let into that famed sanc- 
tuary of fervent and sublime patriotism in the olden time, 
the noblest, the wisest, and most renowned of all the glo- 
rious defenders of the Constitution and the Union. But 
the praise of Daniel Webster was no longer universally 
upon the lips of his once almost idolizing fellow - citi- 
zens of Boston, and his great heart was almost ready to 
break under the mingled influence of the fears which he 
felt for his country's safety, and the profound chagrin and 
anguish which he could not but experience when every 
mail from the East brought to him fresh intelligence of 
the ingratitude of some whom he had so long faithfully 
served, and the profound delusion of not a few fiom 

F 



122 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. '> 

wliose former steadiness of temper and calm equipoise of 
intellect he had confidently expected that encouragement 
and support, amid the painful and perplexing labors in 
which he was then involved, which it is indeed melan- 
choly to recollect were not accorded to him. It must be 
confessed^ though, that there were some then in Congress, 
both from the North and from the South, who did not 
seem to feel any serious alarm for the fate of the country. 
Among these, Mr. Seward, of New York, in so many 
ways distinguished in the latter years of the republic, 
was apparently as calm and unexcited as he could have 
been in times most free from commotion and conflict; 
and I well recollect about this period that this gentle- 
man expressed himself as follows: "And this brings me 
to the great and all-absorbing argument that the Union 
is in danger of being dissolved, and that it can only be 
saved by compromise. I do not know what I would not 
do to save the Union, and therefore I shall bestow upon 
this subject a very deliberate consideration. 

"I do not overlook the fact that the entire delegation 
from the slave states, although they differ in regard to the 
details of the compromise proposed, and, perhaps, in re- 
gard to the exact circumstances of the crisis, seem to con- 
cur in this momentous warning. Nor do I doubt at all 
the patriotic devotion to the Union which is expressed 
by those from whom this warning proceeds. And yet, 
sir, although such warnings have been uttered with im- 
passioned solemnity in my hearing every day for near 
three months, my confidence in the Union remains un- 
shaken. I think they are to be received with no incon- 
siderable distrust, because they are uttered under the in- 



MR. SEWAKD OPPOSED TO COMPROMISE. 123 

fluence of a controlling interest to be secured, a paramount 
object to be gained, and that is, an equilibrium of power 
ill the republic. I think they are to be received with 
even more distrust, because, with the most profound re- 
spect, they are uttered under an obviously high excite- 
ment. Nor is that excitement an unnatural one. It is 
a law of our nature that the passions disturb the reason 
and judgment just in proportion to the importance of the 
occasion, and the consequent necessity for calmness and 
candor. I think they are to be distrusted, because there 
is a diversity of opinion in regard to the nature and op- 
eration of this excitement. The senators from some 
states say that it has brought all parties in their own re- 
gion into unanimity. The honorable senator from Ken- 
tucky (Mr. Clay) says that the danger lies in the violence 
of party spirit, and refers us for proof to the difficulties 
which attend the organization of the House of Eepresent- 
atives. 

" Sir, in my humble judgment, it is not the fierce con- 
flict of parties that we are seeing and hearing, but, on the 
contrary, it is the agony of distracted parties — a convul- 
sion resulting from the too narrow foundations of both 
the great parties^ and of all parties — foundations laid in 
compromises of natural justice and of human liberty. A 
question, a moral question, transcending the too narrow 
creeds of parties, has arisen ; the public conscience ex- 
pands with it, and the green withes of party associations 
give way and break, and fall off from it. No, sir; it is 
not the state that is dying of the fever of party spirit. 
It is merely a paralysis of parties, premonitory, however, 
of their restoration, with new elements of health and vig- 



124 SCYLLA AND CHAEYBDIS. 

or to be imbibed from that spirit of the age which is so 
justly called Progress. Nor is the evil that of unli- 
censed, irregular, and turbulent faction. We are told 
that twenty legislatures are in session, burning like fur- 
naces, heating and inflaming the po|)ular passions. But 
these twenty legislatures arc constitutional furnaces. 
They are performing their customary functions, impart- 
ing healthful heat and vitality while within their consti- 
tutional jurisdiction. If they rage beyond its limits, the 
popular passions of this country are not at all, I think, 
in danger of being inflamed to excess. No, sir; let none 
of these fires be extinguished. Forever let them burn 
and blaze. They are neither ominous meteors nor bale- 
ful comets, but planets ; and, bright and intense as their 
heat may.be, it is their native temperature, and they 
must still obey the law which, by attraction toward this 
solar centre, holds them in their spheres." 

Early one morning at this troublous crisis. General 
Lewis Cass, ever vigilant and active when the interests 
of the country demanded that he should be w^atching 
and laboring for its welfare, visited me at my boarding- 
house, and communicated to me the anxiety which he 
began to feel for the fate of the resolution which I had 
introduced for raising the Committee of Thirteen, and 
urged me to bring the Senate to a vote upon it as early 
as possible, suggesting even that if I could ascertain that 
there were a sufficient number of the senatorial friends 
of the resolution then in the city to secure its adoption, 
to call it up and invoke definite action upon it that very 
morning. Thus admonished, though feeble in health, I 
traversed the city of Washington in every direction, in 



/ 



ME. WEBSTEfe — HIS UNBENDING PATRIOTISM. 125 

order to ascertain what senators would be probably in 
attendance; and coming to the conclusion that if Mr. 
Webster, who had been absent from the Senate for 
several days, could be induced to occupy his seat that 
morning, the resolution could, in all probability, be car- 
ried through by a meagre majority, I immediately dis- 
patched a note to this gentleman's house by a special 
messenger, apprising him of the expected movement, and 
of the desire which I felt for his presence and co-opera- 
tive aid. He came to the Senate accordingly. No soon- 
er did this gentleman reach his seat than he was sur- 
rounded by an earnest crowd of his New England friends, 
some of whom, as I afterward learned from his own lips, ) 
came to dissuade him from voting for my pacificatory res- / 
olution. He likewise informed me, in an interview which ', 
presently occurred between us, that he had received/ 
while in his seat, only a few minutes before, two pressing 
epistolary missives from political friends in the House /of 
Eepresentatives, urging him not farther to risk his popu- 
larity and influence by efforts in support of measures of 
compromise. Under these trying circumstances, this au- 
gust personage proposed to me that I should agree to 
unite with him in supporting a motion which he pro- 
posed in an hour or two to offer for taking uj) for sepa- 
rate consideration the California Bill, in consideration of 
his aiding me in getting my own resolution immediately 
passed. He stated that, if allowed to make known this 
arrangement before giving his vote for raising the Com- 
mittee of Thirteen, he thought it would satisfy certain of 
his friends whose sensibilities he was unwilling needless- 
ly to wound. To this proposition I could not but ac- 



126 SCYLLA AND CHAKYBDIS. 

cede, considering, as I did, and as I then explained to 
Mr. Webster himself, that if all the measures of compro- 
mise, including the hill for admittiyig California^ should 
have been once referred to the Committee of Thirteen, 
there were insuperable parliamentary obstacles to taking 
up any one of these bills sej^araiely^ unless a motion for 
the reconsideration of the resolution of reference should 
be first carried. Immediately after this conversation, 
Mr. Webster returned to his seat, when I called up my 
resolution. When it was put upon its passage, Mr. Web- 
ster rose and stated his intention to 'vote for raising the 
Committee of Thirteen, but took occasion also to mention 
in the hearing of the Senate the arrangement which he 
and I had entered into, as already described. This im- 
mediately called forth language of indignant surprise 
from my own senatorial colleague, Mr. Davis, from Mr. 
Butler, of South Carolina, and Mr. Clemens, of Alabamn, 
who seemed to object very strongly to \}olq i^rivate under- 
standing between Mr. A¥ebster and myself of which they 
had just been apprised, and one or the other of them in- 
sinuated something about the movement being an illicit 
one, and threatened even to vote against the resolution. 
I went immediately to the seats of these gentlemen, made 
such an explanation of what had occurred as the circum- 
stances so easily admitted of, and succeeded in so far 
pacifying them that they all voted for the resolution, 
which presently passed. 

The committee had now to be formed. According to 
the terms of the resolution which had been adopted, the 
Senate would have to designate the members of the com- 
mittee by ballot. Senatorial comity allowing the mover 



COMMITTEE OF THIRTEEN. 127 

of the resolation the privilege of naming the persons to 
be placed on the committee, I caused a list of the mem- 
bers thereof to be laid on the desks of the senators, and 
the following gentlemen were unanimously voted into the 
committee : Henry Clay, of Kentucky, chairman ; Dickin- 
son, of New York ; Phelps, of Vermont ; Bell, of Tennes- 
see ; Cass, of Michigan ; Webster, of Massachusetts ; Ber- 
rien, of Georgia ; Cooper, of Pennsylvania ; Downs, of 
Louisiana ; King, of Alabama ; Mangum, of North Caro- 
lina ; Mason, of Virginia ; and Bright, of Indiana. Six 
of these gentlemen were Democrats, six of them were 
Whigs; six were Southern men, and six were Northern 
men ; with Henry Clay, the Nestor of the Senate (who 
was now no longer a party man, and who had emphat- 
ically announced himself as knowing "^zo North and no 
fSouihj no East and no Wesf\ as chairman. A fairer 
committee was never formed, and no committee \)ras 
ever better fitted, as the event soon proved, wisely And 
successfully to execute the important task allotted to it. 

In a few days, Mr. Clay, who had retired to the coun- 
try in order to draw the bills which the committee was 
expected to report, returned to the Senate, and announced 
the ioWo^mg in-ogramme for the future action of the Sen- 
ate, accompanying the same with an elaborate and well- 
drawn report, which it is judged unnecessary to insert 
here : 

"1st. The admission of any new state or states formed 
out of Texas to be postponed until they shall hereafter 
present themselves to be received into the Union, when 
it will be the duty of Congress fairly and faithfully to ex- 
ecute the compact with Texas by admitting such new 
state or states. 



128 8CYLLA AND CnARYBDIS. 

" 2d. The admission forthwith of Cahfornia into the 
Union, with the boundaries which she has proposed. 

"3d. The estabhshment of territorial governments, with- 
out the Wilmot Proviso, for ISTew Mexico and Utah, em- 
bracing all the territory recently acquired from Mexico 
not contained in the boundaries of California. 

" 4th. The combination of these two last measures in 
the same bill. 

"5th. The establishment of the western and northern 
boundaries of Texas, and the exclusion from her jurisdic- 
tion of all New Mexico, with the grant to Texas of a pe- 
cuniary equivalent; and the section for that purpose to 
be incorporated in the bill admitting California and es- 
tablishing territorial governments for Utah and New 
Mexico. 

" 6th. More effectual enactments of law to secure the 
prompt delivery of persons bound to service or labor in 
one state under the laws thereof, who escape into another 
state; and, 

" 7th. Abstaining from abolishing slavery, but, under a 
heavy penalty, prohibiting the slave-trade in the District 
of Columbia." 



MR. CLAY AND MR. WEBSTER. 129 



CIIAPTEE VIIL 

Great Compromise Struggle of 1850. — IMr. Clay and Mr. "Webster the prin- 
cipal Figures in the Picture. — Mr. Webster's 7th of March Speech, 
and its prodigious Eflbct upon the Public Mind. — Striking Extracts 
therefrom. — Mr. Calhoun's last Speech in the Senate, in which he urges 
that the Admission of California shall be made a test Question. — Em- 
phatic Protest by the Author to this Portion of the Speech, and painful 
Altercation with Mr. Calhoun in Reference to the disputed Point. — 
Proceedings of the Nashville Convention. — Wise and patriotic Conduct 
of Judge Sharkey, the President thereof, which prevents immediate 
Slischief. — Judge Sharkey arrives in Washington, and is offered the 
Department of War, which he declines. — Some Account of Judge Shar- 
ke}'s Life and Character. 

The contest between the friends of peace a;id those 
whose conduct was at this period seriously threatening 
to disturb the public repose, was now fairly in progress. 
Of all the champions of the measures of compromise, Mr. 
Clay and Mr. Webster undoubtedly commanded the lar- 
gest share of the public respect, and their course in Con- 
gress awakened in various quarters much both of com- 
mendation and of dispraise. Mr. Clay had delivered at 
an early period of the session several speeches of marked 
ability and eloquence, which had called forth gratifying 
responses in all parts of the republic. It was now evi- 
dent that old party prejudices were fast giving way to 
sentiments of a very different character all over the land. 
Public men of considerable prominence and of no mean 
influence, who had been the steady and unswerving op- 

F2 



130 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. ' 

ponents of the measures of policy in past times advo- 
cated by Mr. Clay even from the commencement of their 
political career, were every day approaching him kindly, 
and tendering to him their future friendship and support. 
Many of the old supporters of Jackson were seen to come 
into his presence, and were heard to avow their devotion 
to his person and character. Men from whom he had 
been estranged for twenty 3^ears, and who were known 
to have pursued him at a former period with charges of 
a nature even to touch his reputation for integrity, were 
now heard to disavow these charges formally, and to con- 
fess that they had done him the most cruel injustice. It 
was most evident to all that no living man could do so 
much as Mr. Clay then had it in his power to do to sup- 
press the commotion which was already furiously raging, 
and to keep in abej^ance, for the present at least, the hor- 
rors of intestine conflict. About this time, at Mr. Clay's 
instance, I addressed numerous letters to eminent and 
well-known persons residing in various states of the 
Union, asking their opinion of the compromise measures, 
their replies to which were uniformly published in the 
Union newspaper, then edited by the veteran Ritchie, and 
were supposed by some to have had a more or less ben- 
eficial effect in maturing public sentiment, and in remov- 
ing prejudice from the minds of good citizens. 

Mr. Webster's 7th of March speech, delivered, as will 
be observed, anterior to the raising of the Committee of 
Thirteen, had produced beneficial effects every where, 
which effects were displaying themselves throughout the 
republic. His statement of facts was generally looked 
upon as unanswerable; his argumentative conclusions 



MR. Webster's 7th of march speech. 181 

appeared to be inevitable ; his mild, conciliatory, and 
persuasive tone had penetrated and softened the sensi- 
bilities of all patriots. What reasonable and well-inten- 
tioned man could indeed refuse his assent to such prop- 
ositions as the following, which are extracted from that 
same memorable speech ? " My opinion has been, that 
we 'have territory enough, and that we should follow the 
Spartan maxim, ' Improve, .adorn what you have;' seek 
no farther. I think that it was in some observations 
that I made on the Three-million Loan Bill that I avowed 
this sentiment. In short, sir, it has been avowed quite 
as often, in as many places, and before as many as- 
semblies, as any humble opinions of mine ought to be 
avowed. 

"But now that, under certain conditions, Texas is in 
the Union, with all her territory, as a slave state, with a 
solemn pledge also that, if she shall be divided into many 
states, those states may come in as slave states south of 
86° 80', how are we to deal with this subject? I know 
no way of honest legislation, when the proper time comes 
for the enactment, but to carry into effect all that we 
have stipulated to do. I do not entirely agree with my 
honorable friend from Tennessee,^ that, as soon as the 
time Qomes when she is entitled to another representa- 
tive, we should create a new state. On former occasions, 
in creating new states out of territories, we have general- 
ly gone upon the idea that, when the population of the 
territory amounts to about sixty thousand, we would 
consent to its admission as a state. But it is quite a dif- 
ferent thing when a state is divided, and two or more 

* Mr. Bell. 



132 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

states made out of it. It does not follow in such a case 
that the same rule of apportionment should be applied. 
That, however, is a matter for the consideration of Con- 
gress when the proper time arrives. I may not then be 
here ; I may have no vote to give on the occasion ; but 
I wish it to be distinctly understood that, according to 
my view of the matter, this government is solemnly 
pledged, by law and contract, to create new states out of 
Texas, with her consent, when her population shall justi- 
fy and call for such a proceeding, and, so far as such 
states are formed out of Texan territory lying south of 
86° 80', to let them come in as slave states. That is the 
meaning of the contract which our friends, the Northern 
Democracy, have left us to fulfill ; and I, for one, mean 
to fulfill it, because I will not violate the faith of the gov- 
ernment. What I mean to say is, that the time for the 
admission of new states formed out of Texas, the number 
of such states, their boundaries, the requisite amount of 
population, and all other things connected with the ad- 
mission, are in the free discretion of Congress, except 
this, to wit, that, when new states formed out of Texas 
are to be admitted, they have a right, by legal stipulation 
and contract, to come in as slave states. 

" Now, as to California and New Mexico, I hold slav- 
ery to be excluded from those territories by a law even 
superior to that which admits and sanctions it in Texas : 
I mean the law of Nature, of physical geography — the 
law of the formation of the earth. That law settles for 
ever, with a strength beyond all terms of human enact- 
ment, that slavery can not exist in California or New 
Mexico. Understand me, sir ; I mean slavery as we re- 



MK. WEBSTER'S 7tII OF MARCn SPEECH. 188 

gard it — the slavery of tlio colored race as it exists in the 
Southern States. I shall not discuss the point, but leave 
it to the learned gentlemen who have undertaken to dis- 
cuss it ; but I suppose there is no slavery of that descrip- 
tion in California now. I understand that peonism^ a sort 
of penal servitude, exists there, or, rather, a sort of vol- 
untary sale of a man and his offspring for debt, an ar- 
rangement of a peculiar nature known to the law of Mex- 
ico. But what I mean to say is, that it is as impossible 
that African slavery, as we see it among us, should find 
its way, or be introduced into California and New Mexico, 
as any other natural impossibility. California and New 
Mexico are Asiatic in their formation and scenery. They 
are composed of vast ridges of mountains of great height, 
with broken ridges and deep valle}- s. The sides of these 
mountains are entirely barren, their tops capped by pe- 
rennial snow. There may be in California, now made 
free by its Constitution, and no doubt there are, some 
tracts of valuable land. But it is not so in New Mexico. 
Pray, what is the evidence which every gentleman must 
have obtained on this subject from information sought 
by himself or communicated by others ? I have inquired 
and read all I could find, in order to acquire information 
on this important subject. What is there in New Mex- 
ico that could by any possibility induce any body to go 
there with slaves ? There are some narrow strips of till- 
able land on the borders of the rivers, but the rivers 
themselves dry up before midsummer is gone. All that 
the people can do in that region -is to raise some little 
articles, some little wheat for their tortillas^ and that by 
irrigation. And who expects to see a hundred black 



134 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

men cultivating tobacco, corn, cotton, rice, or any thing 
else, on lands in New Mexico made fertile only by irriga- 
tion ? 

"I look upon it, therefore, as a fixed fact, to use the 
current expression of the day, that both California and 
New Mexico are destined to be free, so far as they are 
settled at all, which I believe, in regard to New Mexico, 
will be but partially for a great length of time — free by 
the arrangement of things ordained by the Power above 
us. I have therefore to say, in this respect also, that this 
country is fixed for freedom to as many persons as shall 
ever live in it by a less repealable law than that which 
attaches to the right of holding slaves in Texas ; and I 
will farther say, that, if a resolution or a bill were now 
before us to provide a territorial government for New 
Mexico, I would not vote to put any prohibition into it 
whatever. Such a prohibition would be idle, as it re- 
spects any effect it would have upon the territory ; and 
I would not take pains uselessly to reaffirm an ordinance 
of Nature nor to re-enact the will of God. I would put 
in no Wilmot Proviso for the mere purpose of a taunt or 
a reproach. I would put into it no evidence of the votes 
of superior power, exercised for no purpose but to wound 
the pride — whether a just and a rational pride, or an ir- 
rational pride — of the citizens of the Southern States. I 
have no such object, no such purpose. They would think 
it a taunt, an indignity ; they would think it to be an act 
taking away from them what they regard as a proper 
equality of privilege. Whether they expect to realize 
any benefit from it or not, they would think it at least a 
plain theoretic wrong, that something more or less derog- 



MR. WEBSTER ON THE WILMOT PROVISO. 135 

atorj to their character and their rights had taken place. 
I propose to inflict no such wound upon any body, unless 
something essentially important to the country, and effi- 
cient to the preservation of liberty and freedom, is to be 
effected. I repeat, therefore, sir, and as I do not propose 
to address the Senate often on this subject, I repeat it 
because I wish it to be distinctly understood, that, for the 
reasons stated, if a proposition were now here to estab- 
lish a government for New Mexico, and 4t was moved to 
insert a provision for a prohibition of slavery, I would 
not vote for it. 

" Sir, if we were now making a government for New 
Mexico, and any body should propose a Wilraot Proviso, 
I should treat it exactly as Mr. Polk treated that provision 
. for excluding slavery from Oregon. Mr. Polk was known 
to be in opinion decidedly averse to the Wilmot Proviso, 
but he felt the necessity of establishing a government for 
the Territory of Oregon, ^he proviso was in the bill, 
but he knew it would be entirely nugatory ; and since it 
must be entirely nugatory, since it took away no right, 
no describable, no tangible, no appreciable right of the 
South, he said he would sign the bill for the sake of 
enacting a law to form a government in that territorj^, 
and let that entirely useless and, in that connection, en- 
tirely senseless proviso remain. Sir, we hear occasional- 
ly of the annexation of Canada ; and if there be any man, 
any of the Northern Democracy, or any one of the Free- 
soil party, who supposes it necessary to insert a Wilmot 
Proviso in a territorial government for New Mexico, that 
man would of course be of opinion that it is necessary to 
protect the everlasting snows of Canada from the foot of 



136 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

slavery by tlie same overspreading wing of an act of Con- 
gress. Sir, wherever there is a substantive good to be 
done, wherever there is a foot of hand to be prevented 
from becoming shave territory, I am ready to assert the 
principle of the exclusion of slavery. I am pledged to it 
from the year 1837 ; I have been pledged to it again and 
again, and I will perform those pledges ; but I will not 
do a thing unnecessarily that wounds the feelings of oth- 
ers, or that does discredit to my own understanding. 

"JSTow, Mr. President, I have established, so far as I 
proposed to do so, the proposition with which I set out, 
and upon which I intend to stand or fall, and that is, that 
the whole territory within the former United States, or 
in the newly acquired Mexican provinces, has a fixed and 
settled character — now fixed and settled by law which can 
not be repealed, in the case of Texas, without a violation 
of public faith, and by no human power in regard to Cal- 
ifornia or New Mexico ; that therefore under one or oth- 
er of these laws every foot of land in the states or in the 
territories has already received a fixed and decided char- 
acter." 

After referring to the Convention then expected to be 
held at ISTashville, and expressing a hope that if " worthy 
gentlemen" should meet there in convention, "their object 
will be to adopt conciliatory measures;" after advising 
"the South to forbearance and moderation," and advis- 
ing the North to forbearance and moderation " also," he 
brings this last of his great parliamentary efforts to a 
close in the following grand and impressive manner : 

" Sir, I wish now to make two remarks, and hasten to 
a conclusion. I wish to say, in regard to Texas, that if 



MR. AVEBSTER ON THE COMPROMISE OF 1850. 137 

it should be hereafter at any time the pleasure of the gov- 
ernment of Texas to cede to the United States a portion, 
larger or smaller, of her territory which lies adjacent to 
New Mexico and north of 86° 30' of north latitude, to bo 
formed into free states, for a fair equivalent in money or 
in the payment of her debt, I think it an object well wor- 
thy the consideration of Congress, and I shall be happy 
to concur in it myself, if I should have a connection with 
the government at that time. 

''I have one other remark to make. In my observa- 
tions upon slavery as it has existed in this country and 
as it now exists, I have expressed no opinion of the mode 
of its extinguishment or melioration. I will say, how- 
ever, though I have nothing to propose, because I do not 
deem myself so competent as other gentlemen to take any 
lead on this subject, that if any gentleman from the South 
shall propose a scheme to be carried on by this govern- 
ment upon a large scale for the transportation of free col- 
ored people to any colony or any place in the world, I 
should be quite disposed to incur almost any degree of 
expense to accomplish that object. Nay, sir, following 
an example set more than twenty years ago by a great 
man,* then a senator from New York, I would return to 
Virginia, and through her to the whole South, the money 
received from the lands and territories ceded by her to 
this government for any such purpose as to remove, in 
whole or in part, or in any way to diminish or deal ben- 
efkjially with, the free colored population of the Southern 
States. I have said that I honor Yirginia for her cession 
of this territory. There have been received into the 

' * ]Mi-. Kiifus King. 



138 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

treasury of the United States eighty millions of dollars, 
the proceeds of the sales of the public lands ceded by 
her. If the residue should be sold at the same rate, the 
whole aggregate will exceed two hundred millions of dol- 
lars. If Virginia and the South see fit to adopt any prop- 
osition to relieve- themselves from the free people of color 
among them, or such as may be made free, they have my 
full consent that the government shall pay them any sum 
of money out of the proceeds of that cession which may 
be adequate to the purpose. 

" And now, Mr. President, I draw these observations to 
a close. I have spoken freely, and I meant to do so. I 
have sought to make no display. I have sought to en- 
liven the occasion by no animated discussion, nor have I 
attempted any train of elaborate argument. I have wish- 
ed only to speak my sentiments fully and at length, being 
desirous, once and for all, to let the Senate know, and to 
let the country know, the opinions and sentiments which 
I entertain on all these subjects. These opinions are not 
likely to be suddenly changed. If there be any future 
service that I can render to the country consistently with 
these sentiments and opinions, I shall cheerfully render 
it. If there be not, I shall still be glad to have had an 
opportunity to disburden myself from the bottom of my 
heart, and to make known every political sentiment that 
therein exists. 

"And now, Mr. President, instead of speaking of the 
possibility or utility of secession, instead of dwelling in 
those caverns of darkness, instead of groping with those 
ideas so full of all that is horrid and horrible, let us come 
out into the light of da}^ ; let us enjoy the fresh air of 



MR. WEBSTER ON THE VALUE OF THE UNIOX, 139 

liberty and union ; let us clierisli those hopes which be- 
long to us ; let us devote ourselves to those great objects 
that are fit for our consideration and our action ; let us 
raise our conceptions to the magnitude and the import- 
ance of the duties that devolve upon us ; let our compre- 
hension be as broad as the country for which we act, oar 
aspirations as high as its certain destiny ; let us not be 
pigmies in a case that calls for men. Never did there 
devolve on any generation of men higher trusts than 
now devolve upon us, for the preservation of this Con- 
stitution and the harmony and peace of all who are des- 
tined to live under it. Let us make our generation one 
of the strongest and brightest links in that golden chain 
which is destined, I fondly believe, to grapple the people 
of all the states to this Constitution for ages to come. 
We have a great, popular, constitutional government, 
guarded by law and by judicature, and defended by the 
affections of the whole people. No monarchical throne 
presses these states together, no iron chain of military 
power encircles them; they live and stand under a gov- 
ernment popular in its form, representative in its charac- 
ter, founded upon principles of equality, and so construct- 
ed, we hope, as to last forever. In all its history it has 
been beneficent ; it has trodden down no man's libert}^, 
it has crushed no state. Its daily respiration is liberty 
and patriotism ; its yet youthful veins are fall of enter- 
prise, courage, and honorable love of glory and renown. 
Large before, the country has now, by recent events, be- 
come vastly larger. This republic now extends, with a 
vast breadth, across the whole continent. The two great 
seas of the world wash the one and the other shore. We 



140 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

realize on a mighty scale the beautiful description of the 
ornamental border of the buckler of Achilles : 

" * Now, the broad shield complete the artist crowned 
With his last hand, and poured the ocean round ; 
In living silver seemed the waves to roll. 
And beat the buckler's verge, and bound the whole.' " 

In bringing to notice Mr. Webster's very pointed allu- 
sion to the Nashville Convention, I am reminded of a 
scene which occurred in the Senate a week or two only 
anterior to the death of Mr. Calhoun. His last extended 
vspeech had been delivered in the Senate the day before, 
or, rather, Mr. Mason, of Virginia, had read the speech 
from a printed pamphlet in a very slow and emj)hatic 
manner, Mr. Calhoun being himself present, and occasion- 
ally imparting additional impressiveness to what was thus 
enunciated by particularly significant gestures. There 
were portions of it which struck me at the time it was 
read as unfortunate, and as calculated to do much mis- 
chief, unless their influence should be promptly met and 
counteracted. I feared that the Nashville Convention, 
which was then again in session, might be powerfully 
influenced in its action by such a speech, emanating from 
a source so distinguished, and embodying the views of a 
person so much entitled to respect and confidence as I 
could not but hold Mr. Calhoun to be. It was most pain- 
ful to me to have the least collision with one whom I 
certainly loved and respected as much as I did any man 
living, but I did not see how I could get over entering 
my em-phSitiQ protest to that portion of the speech to which 
I am now referring. So, in the morning hour, and be- 
fore the speech of Mr. Calhoun could be distributed over 



PAINFUL SCENE IN THE SENATE. 141 

the country, I brought the subject to the notice of the 
Senate, and the following scene occurred, as reported in 
the Congressional Globe. 

Mr. Calhoun had, in the speech referred to, demanded 
in behalf of the South an amendment of the Federal Con- 
stitution, which he urged was the only mode left for the 
settlement of the pending sectional questions. Eeferring 
to the North, in connection with the proposition of con- 
stitutional amendment, he had said : " Nothing else can, 
with any certainty, finally and forever settle the ques- 
tions at issue, terminate agitation, and save the Union. 
But can this be done ? Yes, easily ; not by the weaker 
party — for it can of itself do nothing, not even protect it- 
self — but by the stronger. The North has only to will 
it to accomplish it, to do justice by conceding to the 
South an equal right in the acquired territory, and to do 
her duty by causing the stipulations relative to fugitive 
slaves to be faithfully fulfilled, to cease the agitation of 
the slave question, and to provide for the insertion of a 
provision in the Constitution by an amendment which 
will restore to the South, in substance, the power she 
possessed before the equilibrium between the sections 
was destroyed by the action of the government. There 
will be no difiiculty in devising such a provision, one, 
that will protect the South, and which, at the same time, 
will improve and strengthen the government, instead of 
impairing and weakening it." 

Apprehending that this new demand of a constitution- 
al amendment might, if it went out to the country in be- 
half of the South, induce the Nashville Convention to 
adopt it as a sine qua noii to settlement, and thus fatally 



142 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

compromise the South, on the next morniDg I rose up, 
and respectfully but emphatically entered my protest 
against it. Mr. Calhoun coming in while I was doing so, 
rose, and, interrupting me, said : 

"I must really express my great regret that a member 
of this body, in my absence this morning, before the hour 
for the consideration of this question, should have en- 
gaged in commenting on my remarks in reference to the 
important question that is under discussion. I had not 
the advantage of hearing the remarks of the senator from 
Mississippi. Did he accuse me of disunion? Did he 
mean to insinuate that?" 

To which the Congressional Globe reports me as say- 
ing, in reply : 

"I regret that the honorable senator was not in his 
place. My only reason for referring to it at this time 
was, that I did not expect the honorable senator to be 
here for many days. I thought that he was too much in- 
disposed to be present ; and, believing that I should have 
no other opportunity for seasonably shielding myself 
from misjudgment, I determined to seize the present oc- 
casion for that purpose. Now, I will say to the honora- 
ble senator from South Carolina that I had not the slight- 
est intention of imputing to him designs hostile to the 
Union. I said that his motives were, doubtless, patriotic. 
He will find my remarks, when reported in the morning, 
to be somewhat in bad taste, because so exceedingly en- 
comiastic in regard to himself All that I said was, that 
his speech, addressed to us with the best intentions, did 
contain certain declarations, which, if construed as I feared 
they would be construed, would be regarded as insisting, 



IMPORTANT ISSUE MADE. 143 

on the part of tlie South, upon demands that had never 
before been set up, and which might prove fatal to the 
Union if not abandoned." 

After other remarks by me not material to the subject 
at present under consideration, Mr. Calhoun rose again, 
and concluded a very animated explanation thus : 

"But I will say, and I say it boldly, for I am not 
afraid to say the truth on any question, that, as things 
now stand, the Southern States can not ivith safety remain 
in the Union. When this question may be settled, when 
we shall come to a constitutional understanding, is a 
question of time; but, as things now stand, I appeal to 
the senator from Mississippi, if he thinks that the South 
can remain in the Union upon terms of equality ?" 

To which I am reported as replying, 

"We can not, unless the pending questions are settled ; 
but, in my opinion, these questions may be settled, and 
honorably settled luithin ten days' time.^^ 

Then rejoined Mr. Calhoun, 

"Does the senator think that the South can remain in 
the Union upon terms of equality without a siKcific guar- 
antee that she shall enjoy her rights unmolested?" 

To which the answer, as reported, was, 

"I think she may, without any previous amendment of 
the Constitution. There we disagree." 

Mr. Calhoun then frankly responded, 

"Te5, there zue disagree entirely ; and there^ I thinh^ we 
disagree loith our ancestors. I agree with themP^ 

* It has been supposed by some, and even directly charged, that Mr. 
Yancey's course at Baltimore, referred to in a previous chapter, was 
prompted by Mr. Calhoun. I am myself satisfied that such was not the 



144 SCYLLA AND. CHARYBDIS. 

Having iijcidentally alluded in this chapter to the Nash- 
ville Ck)nvention, I will offer a few observations upon the 

fact. At any rate, he was regarded by his politlcai supporters at that 
time to be very distinctly committed to non-interveniiun, though exceed- 
ingly hostile to what he and others were accustomed to call the squatter 
sovei-eignty doctrine. On the occasion of organizing a territorial govern- 
ment for Oregon in the month of June, 1849, he will be found to have 
expressed himself as follows : 

"But I go farther, and hold that justice and the Constitution are the 
easiest and safest ground on which the question can be settled, regarded 
in reference to part?/. It may be settbd on that ground simply by non-ac- 
tion — by leaving the territories free and open to the emigration of all the 
world, so long as they continue so ; and when they become states, to 
adopt Avhatever Constitution they please, with the smgle Restriction to be 
republican, in order to their admission into the "Union. If a party can 
not safely take this broad and solid position, and successfully maintain it, 
what other can it take and maintain?" (I will here suggest that I re- 
member very well that this portion of Mr, Calhoun's Oregon speech was 
regarded at the time as intended to recommend to the Democratic party to 
embody the non-intervention principle in its presidential platform, which 
was accordingly done. ) But he continued : " If it (a party) can not main- 
tain itself by an appeal to the great principles of justice, the Constitution, 
and self-government, to what other, sufficiently strong to uphold them, 
can they appeal ? I greatly mistake the character of the people of this 
Union if such an appeal would not prove successful, if either party should 
have the magnanimity to step forward and boldly take it. It would, in 
my opinion, be received with shouts of approbation by the patriotic and 
intelligent in every quarter. There is a deep feeling pervading the coun- 
try that the Union and our political institutions are in danger, which such 
a course would dispel. " 

He said farther, 

"There is a very striking difference between the position which the 
slaveholding and the non-slaveholding states stand in reference to the 
subject under consideration. The former desire no action of the govcrn- 
ment ,- demand no laio to give them any advantage in the territory about to he 
established ; are willing to leave it, and other territories belonging to the 
United States, open to all their citizens so long as they continue to be 



THE NASHVILLE CONVENTION. 145 

action of that body, and upon some interesting occurren- 
ces connected tlierewith. Though a considerable num- 
ber of individuals attended this Convention as delegates 
from various Southern States, of no little distinction and 
influence in the communities to which thej belonged, 
and though there were a few of these who possessed re- 
markable intellectual power and varied attainments, yet 
it is equally true that there were others of a ver}^ reck- 
less and disorganizing spirit, and not at all fitted, in any 
respect, to perform the difl&cult and somewhat anomalous 
duties which had been assigned them. I am not will- 
ing, at this moment, to say any thing calculated to cast 
discredit upon persons whose political calculations and 
whose individual aspirations have suffered such a cruel 
blight by the operation of recent events. But justice to 
a very uncommon and meritorious personage who chanced 
to be selected to preside over that body. Judge "William 
L. Sharkey, of Mississippi, whose wise and statesmanlike 
conduct as Provisional Governor of Mississippi has at- 
tracted to him so much of public respect and sympathy 
of late, and stamped his name upon the page of history 

territories, and when they cease to be so, to leave it to their inhabitants 
to form such governments as may suit them, ivithout restriction or condi- 
tion, except that inferred by the Constitution, as a prerequisite for enter- 
ing the Union. In short, they are willing to leave the whole subject 
where the Constitution and the great and fundamental principles of self- 
government place it." 

Again he said, in the celebrated Southern Address, "What we propose 
in tills connection is to make a few remarks on what the North alleges 
erroneously to be the^issue between us and them. So far from maintain- 
ing the doctrine which the issue implies, we hold that the Federal gov- 
ernment has no right to extend or restrict slavery, no more than to extin- 
guish or abolish if.'''' 

Cr 



146 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

in characters of enduring honor, demands of me to de- 
clare that, but for his courageous and discreet conduct as 
president of the Convention in 1850, great and wide- 
spread mischief would inevitably have ensued from the 
action of that body. The telegraphic reports which were 
received in Washington during the pendency of the 
measures of compromise, notifying the friends of the 
Union in Congress of the happy effects resulting from 
the decided action, and sage and healing counsels of 
Judge Sharkey, supplied seasonable and essential aid to 
those who were struggling to consummate the work of 
national pacification then in active progress; and it is 
highly gratifying now both to remember and to record 
that President Fillmore was so impressed with the great 
value of the service which Judge Sharkey had rendered 
to the Union cause while presiding over the deliberations 
of the ISTashville Convention, and was so well persuaded 
of his general merits and qualifications, that he did not 
hesitate, on this gentleman's arrival in Washington a few 
days subsequent to the adjournment of that body, to ten- 
der to him the office of Secretary of War, which station 
Judge Sharkey modestly, but with a grateful sense of the 
honor intended to be conferred upon him, thought prop- 
er to decline. This worthy personage has been recently 
elected by the Legislature of the State of Mississippi to 
the Senate of the United States, where I venture to pre- 
dict, upon a more than thirty years' acquaintance with 
him, his career will be as brilliant and useful as his repu- 
tation in private life is stainless and exemplary. 

I should fail to do justice to the great mass of Amer- 
ican population at this critical conjuncture did I not 



CITY OF NEW YORK. " 147 

mention the fact that large public meetings were held in 
every part of the republic, at which eloquent speeches 
were made and patriotic resolutions adopted, of a nature 
to supply the most important assistance to those who 
were struggling to keep the ship of state steady and erect 
amid the conflicting winds then raging. In the great 
commercial emporium of the republic. New York, move- 
ments occurred during the summer of 1850 which a 
grateful country can never cease to bear in kind and re- 
spectful remembrance. A grand popular assemblage 
was held, where a large proportion of the intelhgence 
and wealth of the city were represented ; resolutions ap- 
proving in the most enthusiastic terms the efforts of those 
in Congress engaged in the work of national settlement 
were adopted, and a committee of safety, numbering one 
hundred persons, and composed of some of the most en- 
lightened and influential men on the continent, was ap- 
pointed, which labored afterward incessantly, in every 
practicable mode, to aid in the preservation of a Union 
which was felt to be far too precious to be left exposed 
to the dangers then besetting it on all sides, and which it 
was evident could be only rescued from ruin by the com- 
bined efforts of all who truly loved it, and who were yet 
willing to struggle for its preservation. 



ltL8 SCYLLA AND CHAliYBDIS. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Omnibus Bill under Consideration. — Strenuous Opposition of General 
Taylor's Administration to its Adoption. — Last Appearance of Presi- 
dent Taylor in Public on tbe 4tli of July, 1850, at Monument Square, 
in Washington City, and touching Scene which occurred there. — Gen- 
eral Taylor's Decease a few Days thereafter. — Mr. Webster's eloquent 
Funeral Notice of him. — Mr. Fillmore's Inauguration as President, and 
efficient Support of the Compromise Measures. — Official Order found 
on General Taylor's Table after his Decease, ordering the forcible Ex- 
pulsion from New Mexico by the Military of Texan Settlers. — Mr. 
Clay's heroic Remonstrance against this coercive Policy, which he re- 
garded as needlessly endangering the Union.— Fierce Opposition to the 
Compromise Measures on the Part both of Extremists of the North and 
Extremists of the South. — Terrible Struggle over the Omnibus Bill in 
the Senate, which is finally broken into Fragments mainly by the In- 
discretion of its own Friends, but the integral Portions of which finally 
pass both Houses. — The Country quieted under the Influence of this 
Measure. — Sage and firm Conduct of President Fillmore in causing the 
Compromise Enactments to be every where faithfully executed. — Cel- 
ebrated Rescue Case in Massachusetts, and interesting Proceedings in 
Congress in Connection therewith. 

The compromise measures, in the form of an Omnibus 
Bill^ as it was called at the time, were under discussion 
in the national Senate, and various questions connected 
with the proposed "^9?a7z of adjustments''^ as Mr. Dallas, in 
a letter to myself, written about this period and published 
in the newspapers, more aptly entitled them, were calling 
forth much acrimonious discussion in both wings of the 
Capitol, when General Taylor very suddenly died, early 
in the month of July, 1850. The last time I saw this fine 



GENERAL TAYLOR'S LAST APPEARANCE IN PUBLIC. 149 

specimen of tlie honest, blunt, strong-minded, resolute, 
but, it must be confessed, somewhat self-willed and ob- 
stinate soldier of the backwoods, was on the Fourth of 
July, at what is known as the Washington Monument, 
where I had the honor of delivering, by request of the 
patriotic association formed for the purpose of erecting 
the same, the customary anniversary oration. President 
Taylor and his cabinet had all come forth on this occa- 
sion, far more, I am sure, to render deserved homage to 
the memory of the august Father of his Country than to 
listen to the feeble and unworthy effusion to which they 
were about to give respectful audience. Never had I 
seen him look more robust and healthful than while seat- 
ed under the canopy which sheltered the speaker and the 
assembled concourse from the burning rays of an almost 
vertical sun. After the address had been concluded, he 
kindly beckoned me to approach him, cordially offered 
me his hand, and tendered me his thanks for what I am 
painfully sensible very little merited such a compliment- 
ary notice ; though I am gratified to know that those who 
may now choose to look over that same speech will at 
least find it replete with the most fervent Union senti- 
ments, and the most enthusiastic wishes for our country's 
happiness. I think that the veteran President added, 
^^Why ivillyou not always s])eali in this ivayf a kind and 
patriotic implication of rebuke^ which I will not undertake 
now to say was altogether unreasonable, and from which 
I hope I did not fail subsequently, in some degree, to prof- 
it. In a day or two more the hero of so many battles had 
gone to his long home, and a grand public funeral was 
awarded him. The following appropriate and pathetic 



150 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

speech was delivered by Mr. Webster in the Senate, on 
the occasion of presenting resolutions in notice of his 
demise : 

" Mr. Secretary, at a time when the great mass of our 
fellow-citizens are in the enjoyment of an unusual meas- 
ure of health and prosperity throughout the whole coun- 
try, it has pleased Divine Providence to visit the two 
houses of Congress, and especially this House, with re- 
peated occasions for mourning and lamentation. Since 
the commencement of the, session, we have followed two 
of our own members to their last home ; and we are now 
called upon, in conjunction with the other branch of the 
Legislature, and in fall sympathy with that deep tone of 
affliction which I am sure is felt throughout the country, 
to take part in the due solemnities of the funeral of the 
late President of the United States. 

"Truly, sir, was it said, in the communication read to 
us, that a 'great man has fallen among us.' The late 
President of the United States, originally a soldier by 
profession, having gone through a long and splendid ca- 
reer of military service, had, at the close of the late war 
with Mexico, become so much endeared to the people of 
the United States, and had inspired them with so high a 
degree of regard and confidence, that, without solicitation 
or application, without pursuing any devious paths of 
policy, or turning a hair's breadth to the right or left 
from the path of duty, a great, and powerful, and gener- 
ous people saw fit, by popular vote and voice, to confer 
upon him the highest civil authority in the nation. We 
can not forget that, as in other instances so in this, the 
public feeling was won and carried away, in some de- 



FUNERAL SPEECH IN HONOR OF GEN. TAYLOR. 151 

gree, by the eclat of military renown. So it has been 
always, and so it always will be, because high respect for 
noble deeds in arms has been and always will be out- 
poured from the hearts of the members of a popular gov- 
ernment. 

"But it W'ill be a great mistake to suppose that the 
late President of the United States owed his advance- 
ment to high civil trust, or his great acceptableness with 
the people, to military talent or ability alone. I believe, 
sir, that, associated with the highest admiration for those 
qualities possessed by him, there was spread throughout 
the community a high degree of confidence and faith in 
his integrity and honor, and uprightness as a man. I 
believe he was especially regarded as both a firm and a 
mild man in the exercise of authority ; and I have ob- 
served more than once, in this and in other popular gov- 
ernments, that the prevalent motive with the masses of 
mankind for conferring high power on individuals is a 
confidence in their mildness, their paternal, protecting, 
prudent, and safe character. The people naturally feel 
safe where they feel themselves to be under the control 
and protection of sober counsel, of impartial minds, and 
a general paternal superintendence. 

" I suppose, sir, that no case ever happened in the very 
best days of the Eoman republic when a man found him- 
self clothed with the highest authority in the state under 
circumstances more repelling all suspicion of personal 
application, of pursuing any crooked path in politics, or 
of having been actuated by sinister views and purposes, 
than in the case of the worthy, and eminent, and distin- 
guished, and good man whose death we now deplore. 



152 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

"He lias left to the people of his country a legacy in 
this. He has left them a bright example, which address- 
es itself with peculiar force to the young and rising gen- 
eration ; for it tells them that there is a path to the high- 
est degree of renown straight onward, steady, without 
change or deviation. 

" Mr. Secretary, my friend from Louisiana* has detailed 
shortly the events in the military career of General Tay- 
lor! His service through his life was mostly on the 
frontier, and always a hard service, often in combat with 
the tribes of Indians along the frontier for so many thou- 
sands of miles. It has been justly remarked by one of 
the most eloquent men whose voice was ever heard in 
these housesf that it is not in Indian wars that heroes 
are celebrated, but that it is there that they are formed. 
The hard service, the stern discipline devolving upon all 
those who have a great extent of frontier to defend, often 
with irregular troops, being called on suddenly to enter 
into contests with savages, to study the habits of savage 
life and savage war, in order to foresee and overcome 
their stratagems, all these things tend to make' hardy 
military character. 

"For a very short time, sir, I had a connection with 
the executive government of this country, and at that 
time very perilous and embarrassing circumstances ex- 
isted between the United States and the Indians on the 
borders, and war was actually carried on between the 
United States and the Florida tribes. I very well re- 
member that those who took counsel tos^ether on that 
occasion officially, and who were desirous of placing the 

* Mr, Downs. f Fisher Ames. 



FUNERAL SPEECH IN HONOR OF GEN. TAYLOR. 153 

military command in the safest hands, came to the con- 
clusion that there was no man in the service more fully 
uniting the qualities of military ability and great person- 
al prudence than Zachary Taylor, and he was appointed 
to the command. 

" Unfortunately, his career at the head of this govern- 
ment was short. For my part, in all that I have seen of 
-him, I have found much to respect and nothing to con- 
demn. The circumstances under which he conducted 
the government for the short time he was at the head of 
it have been such as perhaps not to give him a very fa- 
vorable opportunity of developing his principles and his 
policy, and carrying them out ; but I believe he has left 
on the minds of the country a strong impression, first, of 
his absolute honesty and integrity of character ; next, of 
his sound, practical good sense ; and, lastly, of the mild- 
ness and friendliness of his temper toward all his coun- 
trymen. 

" But he is gone. He is ours no more, except in the 
force of his example. Sir, I heard with infinite delight' 
the sentiments expressed by my honorable friend from 
Louisiana who has just resumed his seat, when he earn- 
estly prayed that this event might be used to soften the 
animosities, to allay party criminations and recrimina- 
tions, and to restore fellowship and good feeling among 
the various sections of the Union. Mr. Secretary, great 
as is our loss to-day, if these inestimable and inapprecia- 
ble blessings shall have been secured to us even by the 
death of Zachary Taylor, they have not been purchased 
at too high a price ; and if his spirit, from the regions to 
which he has ascended, could see these results flowing 

G2 



154 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

from his unexpected and untimely end, if he could see 
that he had entwined a soldier's laurel around a martyr's 
crown, he would say exultingly, ' Happy am I that, by 
my death, I have done more for that country which I 
loved and served, than I did or could do by all the devo- 
tion and all the efforts that I could make in her behalf 
during the short space of my earthly existence.' 

"Mr. Secretary, great as this calamity is, we mourn 
not as those without hope. We have seen one eminent 
man, and another eminent man, and at last a man in the 
most eminent station, fall away from the midst of us. 
But I doubt not there is a Power above us exercising 
over us that parental care that has guarded our progress 
for so many years. I have confidence still that the place 
of the departed will be supplied ; that the kind, beneficent 
favor of Almighty God will still be with us, and that we 
shall be borne along, and borne upward and upward, on 
the wings of his sustaining providence. May God grant 
that, in the time that is before us, there may not be want- 
ing to us as wise men, as good men for our counselors, 
as he whoso funeral obsequies we now propose to cele- 
brate !" 

It has been already stated that while General Taylor 
lived he had not seen the necessity of those measures of 
compromise which men of not less patriotism than him- 
self, and of far more civic experience, regarded as essen- 
tial to the restoration of the public repose. I rejoice to 
recollect,' though, that I never heard any one call his 
motives in question in adhering to his non-action 'policy^ as 
it was at the time, not very aptly, as I must think, enti- 
tled ; though I suppose no person will deny that this ex- 



MR. CLAY AND GENERAL TAYLOR. 155 

cellent and patriotic personage had been induced to re- 
gard the conduct of Mr. Clay and those co-operating with 
ium in urs'lns: the early settlement of all the outstand- 
ing questions of sectional differences by congressional leg- 
islation, with considerable disfavor, if not, indeed, with 
strono'er feelin2;s. It is certain that he was sometimes 
heard to complain that the members of Congress referred 
to were ungraciously embarrassing his administration; 
and in a newspaper published in Washington City, rec- 
ognized at the time as the organ of the government, daily 
diatribes made their appearance directed at the compro- 
mise measures, and even severely arraigning Mr. Clay by 
name. Nor was this gentleman at all times patient un- 
der such illiberal assaults, and on at least one occasion, 
in the morning hour, was his trumpet-toned voice raised 
in terrible and withering rebuke of the political Ther- 
sites who was, as he charged, factiously essaying to keep 
alive sectional excitement at the hazard of the public 
peace and of the nation's safety. It is perhaps not very 
surprising that General Taylor, with his exclusive mili- 
tary notions, should have resolved to drive off by force 
of arms the Texan citizens who were then reputed to be 
upon the disputed territory, claimed alike by Texas, as a 
part of her own domain, and by the United States, as a 
portion of the territory recently acquired from the Eepub- 
lic of Mexico. Mr. Webster, when Secretary of State, a 
month or two subsequent to General Taylor's decease, in 
a speech or letter, I do not now remember which, stated 
the fact that upon the President's official table, or in the 
Department of War, an official order was found, after Mr. 
Fillmore's ind action into the presidency, directing the 



156 SCYLLA AND CHARY^DIS. 

United States military commander then in charge of Neio 
Mexico to lose not a moments time in expelling the alleged 
Texan intruders heyond luhat ivas deemed by the government 
to he the true boundary line of New Mexico. I was myself 
in the Senate one morning wlien Mr. Seward, of New 
York, gave distinct and emphatic premonition of what 
General Taylor had then resolved to do upon this sub- 
ject, and well remember the mingled surprise and indig- 
nation which Mr. Clay displayed on that occasion, and 
the frank and solemn warning he uttered in reference to 
the execution of a measure which he did not hesitate to 
declare must, if essayed, inevitably produce civil ivar^ if, 
indeed, it would noi justify it. He declared that nothing 
could be, in his judgment, more unwise or more pregnant 
with mischief than an attempt to settle by the arbitra- 
ment of the sword the disputed question of territorial 
boundary, and avowed his apprehension that, should the 
interposition of military force occur at a time when so 
many millions were confidently expecting the early adop- 
tion of measures of pacification by Congress, the first 
drop of the blood of Texan citizens shed by the regular 
soldiers of th*e government would wake up a general and 
fearful conflagration, which might in the issue consume 
all that existed of American liberty. 

I shall not say more at present in regard to the meas- 
ures of compromise proposed, than that there was not 
one of them the constitutionality of, which could be reason- 
ably disputed; nor do I suppose that any enlightened 
man can now be found in the republic, whose mind is 
free from the delusion of sectional prejudice, who would 
undertake to deny the full power of Congress to leg- 



COMPROMISE MEASUKES. 157 

islate precisely in the manner contemplated by tliese 
same enactments. Sectional agitators, though, on both 
sides of Mason and Dixon's line, were for some time 
heard to complain that Congress had seriously transcend- 
ed the limits of its power, and that its action was there- 
fore not entitled to popular respect. Extremists in the 
South freely denounced the Texas Boundary Bill as a 
frauds as a hribe administered to a sovereign state, in or- 
der to induce her to sacrifice the general interests of the 
South ; nor would they listen with patience to the pro- 
phetic language which was constantly thundered in their 
ears, that this very measure would enable Texas, by 
means of the large pecuniary sum which was presently 
to be paid her in exchange for territory the title to which 
was admitted to be doubtful, to pay off the large public 
debt contracted during her revolutionary struggle, thus 
relieving her people from grinding taxation ; supply her, 
in addition, with ample means for establishing a liberal sys- 
tem of education within her borders, and for overspread- 
ing her surface with railways, and thus attracting within 
her limits myriads of immigrants from other regions, who 
would, in a few years, convert her into the empire slave 
state of the Southwest, destined, as such, to become an im- 
pregnable barrier to the encroachments of abolition in 
that direction. These dissatisfied factionists murmured 
over the congressional enactment which uprooted slave 
traffic in the District of Columbia, and absurdly insisted 
that by it slavery was virtually abolished therein ; when 
the truth was, that Congress had only re-enacted the old 
law of Maryland on this subject which had been on the 
statute-book of the district for more than a half century, 



158 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

and had not, in fact, provided for tlie liberation of a sin- 
gle slave from bondage. So these persons also denounced 
the new Fugitive Slave Law as utterly inefficient, and 
raised a prodigious clamor over the admission of Califor- 
nia, declaring such admission unconstitutional, though 
they were bound to know that the form of admission was 
just the same as had been adopted some dozen times be- 
fore. Even the territorial bills were not satisfactory to 
these blinded and overheated zealots, who alleged that 
special congressional protection to slavery in the territo- 
ries should have been accorded. 

On the other hand, the extremists from the North also 
objected, and with some little show of plausibility, I con- 
fess, to the paying to Texas from the public treasury for 
lands the value of which they seriously doubted, and the 
title to which they alleged was really in the general gov- 
ernment already. They found serious fault with the ter- 
ritorial bills, because they did not contain the Wilmot 
Proviso, though Mr. Webster and others had plainly 
shown, as has been seen, that slavery was already ex- 
cluded both by the Mexican laws existing there and the 
irresistible decree of Nature. They insisted that slavery 
should have been done away altogether in the District of 
Columbia, and were extremel}^ indignant that the new 
Fugitive Slave Law was so constructed as to place its due 
enforcement exclusively in the power of the general gov- 
ernment, without looking thereafter to the free states 
themselves for such legislation on this subject as would 
be likely to prove effective. 

All intelligent men know that the Omnibus Bill, while 
on its passage through the Senate, was broken into sep- 



PASSAGE OF THE COMPROMISE MEASURES. 159 

jirate enactments mainly by the gross indiscretion of 
sonic of its own professed friends, and that fnially the 
several fragments into which it had been dissolved all 
passed the two houses of Congress, and became part of 
the supreme laiu of the land. 

Some members of Congress, both from the North and 
the South, still contended that there was nothing more 
sacred in the compromise measures thus adopted than in 
ordmari) legislative enactments, urging that they were 
all subject, like other bills which passed Congress, to be 
amended or repealed at pleasure by succeeding Congress- 
es. With a view to counteracting this view of the mat- 
ter, upon the advice of various judicious friends I intro- 
duced resolutions at the next succeeding session of Con- 
gross which asserted the various acts of Congress speci- 
fied, notwithstanding they had been disjoined from each 
other in the manner stated, still to constitute, in fact, one 
scheme of compromise or adjustment^ for the due enforce- 
ment of which the public faith was solemnly pledged, 
and declared the legislation which had just taken place 
to be a fined settlement^ in principle and suhstance^ of all the 
controverted questions of slavery. Though this resolu- 
tion was not so fortunate as to receive the sanction of the 
two houses of Congress, yet it is not a little gratifying to 
me now to recollect that the great principle of finality 
asserted therein was afterward unequivocally incorpora- 
ted both in the Whig and Democratic presidential plat- 
forms of 1852. 

It is due to Mr. Fillmore to say, that but for his effi- 
cient co-operation in securing the passage of the various 
compromise enactments, it is not probable that they would 



160 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

have become laws; and his wise and patriotic conduct 
afterward, in faithfully enforcing these enactments in both 
sections of the Union, constitutes, in my judgment, one 
of the brightest pages in American annals. Never did 
this conscientious and upright President knowingly ap- 
point any man to office who was not already pledged to 
stand by and maintain the compromise measures in their 
eniiretij^ knowing as he did that if the official patronage 
of which he had control was bestowed to any consider- 
able extent upon sectional factionists, upon' the heated 
agitators of questions which the plan of compromise had 
adjusted, there was no probability that the excitement 
which had been just allayed would fail to be afterward 
renewed. This was the true secret of the almost un- 
broken quietude which the republic so happily enjoyed 
while Mr. Fillmore held the position of president ; and it 
was the notorious and unpardonable adoption of an op- 
posite principle by Mr. Pierce after he came into office — 
the continual agitation of the slavery question by him or 
under his direction in presidential messages and other- 
wise — the illicit arts undeniably practiced by certain per- 
sons in his employment for the raising of new slavery 
issues — the cruel and shameless persecution which they 
brought to bear upon Union men in the South who 
chanced to be in Federal employment at the time, either 
under the appointment of Mr. Fillmore or otherwise, and 
the strange and startling discrimination which was prac- 
ticed in the North in connection with the distribution of 
official patronage in favor of what was known at the time 
as Free-soil Democrats, that brought into existence once 
more those sectional factions which the operation of the- 



SCENE IN" MR. CLAY'S SICK-ROOM. 161 

compromise had suppressed, and which, in the sequel, ut- 
terly broke down the popularity of Mr. Pierce's adminis- 
tration, fatally undermined the strength of the Democratic 
party in the free states, and well-nigh brought about the 
election of a Kepublican president in 1856. Mr. Pierce 
will be held by all sound- thinking men as the more justly 
deserving reprehension in regard to these matters by rea- 
son of the fact that he had been elected upon an unequiv- 
ocal finality platform, and was pledged in every way to 
administer the government upon purely national princi- 
ples. How he came to pursue such a course will be, to 
some extent, hereafter explained, and the consequences of 
such unwise conduct on his part will be perhaps made 
somewhat more apparent. I will conclude this chapter 
"by the relation of an anecdote, which will bring very 
strikingly to view the spirit uniformly displayed by 
President Fillmore and his cabinet in regard to giving 
full effect to the compromise measures. 

About the middle of the month of February, 1851, I 
was one morning walking along the Pennsjdvania Ave- 
nue, in Washington City, when, beholding the arrival of 
the railway cars from the East, I turned in at the depot 
and purchased a New York Herald of that date. On 
glancing over its columns, I saw, greatly to my concern 
and alarm, a graphic and minute account of the celebrated 
rescue scene which had just occurred at Boston, and of the 
successful contravention of the new Fugitive Slave Act 
by moh violence. Though I had never myself participated 
in the general feeling of my Southern countrymen that it 
was very essential to the preservation of the slavehold- 
ing system that all negroes who chanced to escape from 



162 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

their owners should be apprehended and returned to serv- 
ice, and had never seen the day when I would have made 
the least exertion to recapture a slave of my own, and, in- 
deed, would rather at any time have been inclined to re- 
gard the fact of his having actually accomplished Ms es- 
cape as a proof that he was more or less fitted to enjoy 
freedom, yet I was well satisfied that in the then existing 
condition of the public mind of the South, the occurrence 
whicli was thus reported to have taken place, when duly 
made known to our overheated and too mercurial South- 
ern countrymen, would at once call forth intense and 
widely-extended excitement, and tend greatly to enfee- 
ble the compromise measures in the slaveholding states, 
where a general spirit of acquiescence was beginning to 
display itself 

I was quite confident, also, that the intelligence which 
had just reached Washington would that very day pro- 
voke renewed controversial acrimony in the two houses 
of Congress, the diffusion of whicli through the news- 
papers might be productive of much unkind feeling in 
both sections of the Union, which all true patriots could 
not fail to deplore. AYith these views I proceeded at 
once to tlie room of Mr. Clay at the National Hotel, 
where I found the venerable patriarch surrounded by a 
crowd of youthful visitants, several of whom I under- 
stood to be his own grandchildren. He received me 
with his usual affiibility. Apologizing to him for dis- 
turbing the pleasant scene which I saw in progress, I ask- 
ed leave to lay before him the news which I had brought. 
He requested me to read aloud the article in the Herald, 
which I did ; on concluding which, he said, with an em- 



NOBLE CONDUCT OF MR. FILLMORE. 163 

pliasis which I can never forget, "My dear friend, you 
are right ; this is indeed alarming intelligence, and noth- 
ing, in my judgment, can prevent the arising of great mis- 
chief but the immediate adoption by the government of 
the most energetic measures for the enforcement of the 
laws. Let me' ask you to hasten to the White House, 
see President Fillmore as soon as you can, lay these ex- 
traordinary facts before him, and make known to him 
that I will myself be also in his presence in a few mo- 
ments, only being detained here so long as is necessary 
to have my carriage brought to the door." I acted 
promptly as he had advised, went rapidly to the presi- 
dential mansion, and was in a few minutes admitted to 
an interview with Mr. Fillmore. I found him, as usual, 
calm and composed, but yet did his face indicate a little 
more than ordinary solemnity and earnestness. I lost no 
time in announcing the object of my errand. He told 
me that he had already received the Boston news, and 
had called a cabinet meeting to consider of it, which was 
very soon to occur. He in a few words announced his 
determination to enforce the laws of the land at all haz- 
ards, and put down, with the whole power of the govern- 
ment, if need be, any illicit or violent attempt to counter- 
act or overturn them. 

I remained with him only a few moments, and when 
he rose up to take leave of me I ventured to. say to him, 
" Mr. President, I am delighted with this interview ; the 
fate of the republic is in your hands, and I rejoice to be- 
lieve that you are prepared to do j^our whole duty at 
this crisis." Mr. Fillmore having suggested that I should 
call, on my way to the Capitol, upon Mr. Webster, I pro- 



164 SCYLLA AND CHAEYBDIS. 

ceedecl accordingly to the Department of State. I found 
the immortal defender of the Union alone. Immediately 
on my bringing the Boston outrage to Mr. Webster's no- 
tice, he told me that he had already received full intelli- 
gence on the subject, and courteously turning to me, 
said, "Well, what ought to be done?" To which I re- 
sponded that I certainly had no idea of intruding my ad- 
monitions upon the individual to whom the country was 
now looking for a new ^^ Life of Washington^ "Ah I" 
he exclaimed, " I understand you. You are thinking of 
the whisky insurrection in Pennsylvania, and suppose that 
a presidential proclamation may- be proper." I replied 
that Mr. Clay had said that he thought a proclamation 
ought to be issued. "Well," he resumed, " what do you 
think of directing all the military and naval forces in the 
neighborhood of Boston to aid in sustaining the law?" 
"That would seem to be right," I said. "Yery well; 
what do you say in reference to calling out the militia 
of Massachusetts?" he continued. "That, I really sup- 
pose, will hardly be needed," I replied ; " for I have met 
on the way hither a captain of volunteers in Boston, who 
told me that he was then hurrying home to call out his 
company, with a view to aiding the Federal marshal in 
maintaining the authority of the laws." "I am glad to 
hear that," he said; and then, rising up and facing me, 
he added, with great solemnity and emphasis, " Be as- 
sured that all these things shall he done, and done ivithout 
delay, or Daniel Webster ivillhe no longer a cabinet minister.^'' 
After these interesting interviews I proceeded to the 
hall of the Senate, where I found Mr. Hale* upon his 

* The gentleman licrc referred to deserves to be noticed by nie a little 



MK. HALE AKD THE BOSTON MOB. 165 

legs, declaiming most lustily against the Fugitive Slave 
Law, commending warmly the action of the Abolition 

more particularly. He is undoubtedly a person of very uncommon qual- 
ities as a speaker. His remarkable readiness and facility of speech, bis 
kind and genial temper, and his agreeable colloquial powers, will ever be 
jilcasantly recollected by those who served with him in the national Sen- 
ate. A month or two after I took my seat as a member of that body, I 
was suddenly and unexpectedly thrown into collision with him, under cir- 
cumstances of a very peculiar character. On the very day that the Gott 
resolutions (already referred to) were introduced in the House of Rep- 
resentatives, Mr. ilale introduced a bill in the Senate during the morning 
hour, and poured forth one of the most fervid and irritating speeches upon 
the subject of slavery in the District of Columbia that I ever heard, Mr. 
Calhoun was greatly inflamed by it, and came to the seats of my senatorial 
colleague, INIr. Davis, and myself, and urged us both to say something in 
response to Mr. Hale. Thus prompted, we did both assail INIr. Hale and 
his speech in language not a little excited in its character. I must confess 
that I entirely forgot myself on this occasion, and delivered a fierce, in- 
sulting, and vindictive harangue, wholly unworthy of the place, the mem- 
ory of which has been ever most painful and mortifying. I even used 
terms of indecent menace, and talked about hanging the gifted New 
Hampshire senator. When the excitement of the moment passed away, 
I was full of contrition on account of my grossly unsenatorial conduct, 
and oftcred more than once in my place a formal apology for rudeness 
which nothing could excuse. The good-natured and forgiving Mr. Hale 
acted a most generous and manly part, and gave me the most distinct as- 
surance that he should harbor no unfriendly feelings toward me on ac- 
count of my faux pas. Not so the unsparing and unforgiving public : 
and I continued for full ten years to receive the most insulting and acri- 
monious anonymous letters referring to this affair, and denouncing me as 
"Hangman Foote," accompanied sometimes with caricatural representa- 
tions of a singularly striking and amusing character. About two months 
after this indecent conduct, Mr. Hale came to me and said, one morning, 
that he had a personal favor to ask at my hands. I inquired what it 
was, when he stated that a young man of tender years, whose family he 
knew to be very respectable, had just been convicted in the District Court 
of 'Washington of forger i/, and was then lying in prison: He stated, in 



166 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

mob in Boston, and declaring tliat he had always thought 
and asserted that no law which was so much opposed to 
local public sentiment as this could ever be enforced. 
Upon his ceasing to speak, I rose and announced to 
the Senate the manly and patriotic assurances which I 
had just received from the lips of Mr. Fillmore and Mr. 
"Webster, and concluded by declaring that, before the 
termination of the day that was then passing away, all 
America would learn that there were high-spirited and 
fearless men now in power who would dare to do their 
duty to the Constitution and the country, despite all that 
sectional factionists might essay to bring the government 
and its laws into contempt. I had not taken my seat 
before Mr. Clay came in. He rose when I sat down, 
and confirmed all I had previously stated in regard to 
the intended action of the government, and uttered an 
earnest and thrilling invocation in favor of vindicating 

addition, that his sister, a charming young lady from New Hampshire, 
had just reached Washington for the purpose of procuring, if possible, 
her brothers release ; and did me the honor to say that he thought that 
if I would make personal application to Secretary Walker and President 
Polk, this interesting object would be easily attained. Becoming satisfied 
from his statement that it was a proper case for executive clemency, I 
immediately undertook the duty of visiting my friend, Mr, Walker, and 
the President, as he desired, and in an hour or two the young man was 
released, and placed in the affectionate custody of his weeping sister, to^ 
be escorted without delay to his own New England home. Before they 
departed, though, Mr. Hale said to the young lady, "When you get home, 
tell your friends that your brother owes his liberation to the kindness of a 
United States senator from the South, who is at this moment receiving a 
great deal of unjust abuse in the North. The person who procured your 
brother's discharge is the individual so often spoken of as Hangman 
Foote. Go home and tell your friends to abuse BIr. Foute no more." 



FILLMORE — WEBSTER — CLAY. 107 

the violated majesty of the law. While he was speak- 
ing he paused for a moment, beckoned me to his posi- 
tion, and whispered to me that he desired a short legisla- 
tive proposition to be drawn immediately, which he 
would offer to the Senate before he yielded the floor, the 
contents of which he specified. I prepared the rough 
draft of it at once, had it neatly copied, and handed it to 
him. Just before closing he presented it for the consid- 
eration of the Senate. He declared it to have become 
necessary to arm the President with fuller powers than 
he was then supposed to possess, for the enforcement of 
the law for the recapture and restoration of fugitives 
from service. A warm debate sprang up upon this prop- 
osition, which I remember brought my senatorial col- 
league, Mr. Davis, and myself into sharp collision. This 
gentleman indignantly scouted the idea of giving the 
President any additional power, and declared that he 
would not vote a dollar or a man for coercing the sover- 
eign State of Massachusetts into respect for the law which 
had been just violated. When the final action of the 
Senate upon this interesting question occurred I chanced 
to be absent, having been invited to the city of [N'ew 
York to deliver an oration, on the 22d of February, in 
honor of Washington ; but I well remember being deep- 
ly pained, though I was certainly not much astonished at 
finding, from the publications made in the newspapers, 
that when the vote was taken at last upon the proposi- 
tion to sustain President Fillmore in carrying out the 
commendable policy which he had set forth in a spe- 
cial message, addressed to the two houses of Congress, 
extremists of the North and extremists of the South 



168 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

united their efforts to defeat that policy^ being evidently 
bent upon giving evidence to the world that the " irre- 
fressihle cor\flicf so much bruited at the time was not a 
mere figment of fancy, but a solid and fearful reality I 



QUIET UNDEil THE COMPKOMISE. 169 



CHAPTEE X. 

Country completely restored to Quiet under the Compromise Measures, 
except in several of the Southern States.— Exciting Contest in Georgia 
and Mississippi in 1850, '1, upon the Disunion Issue, in both of v/hich 
States the Union Cause is finally triumphant.— South Carolina, failing 
to obtain co-operative Aid, at last subsides into a State of Quietude. — 
The Election of IMr. Pierce to the Presidency as an avowed Supporter 
of the Finality Principle, who calls jMr. Davis to the Department of 
War, and the Slavery Agitation is at once renewed. —Mr. Pierce's 
gross Infidelity to his Pledges, by whose Indiscretion and Misconduct 
the Conflict of sectional Factions is again revived. —Mr. Douglas un- 
fortunately yields to the Counsels addressed to hini from various Quar- 
ters, and introduces the Kansas-Nebraska Bill.— Sectional Excitement 
greatly increased and intensified by that Measure. — Notice of the De- 
cease of Mr. Clay and Mn Webster, and of their commanding intellect- 
ual Powers and interesting Traits of Character. 

The compromise struggle terminated in Congress dur- 
ing the summer of 1850, and gradually made its way 
into the affections of the people every where, a great 
majority of whom were well pleased with the work per- 
formed by Mr. Clay and his patriotic co-operators. Fa- 
natical agitators in several of the Northern States still 
continued for a time to rail against what had been done, 
and to accuse the wisest and most conservative statesmen 
that the republic contained* of having perpetrated the 
most criminal violation of the great and fundamental 
principles of universal liberty and equality ; while in the 
far South, agitators equally excited, and bent upon dis- 
turbing the public peace, were pouring forth fierce and 
violent harangues for states' rights, secession, and a scp- 

H 



170 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

arate Southern republic. In Virginia, Tennessee, Mary- 
land, Delaware, North Carolina, Kentucky, Missouri, 
Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, and Florida, the compromise 
enactments were cordially acquiesced in. In Alabama, 
after a very short struggle, the governor and Legislature 
imitated the noble example of the states just named. In 
South Carolina movements soon occurred which clearly 
indicated that a majority of her people, misled by the 
delusory teachings of some of the most ingenious and 
plausible political agitators that our hemisphere has yet 
known, were fast making up their mind no longer to 
remain in a Federal Union which they had learned to 
detest, or submit to the authority of a government which 
they regarded as menacing them with intolerable oppres- 
sion. There were public men even in South Carolina 
who were exceedingly opposed to all rash and fatal 
measures, and who were by no means ready to try the 
rash hazards of such an experiment as that in which they 
were now invited to participate. Among these was the 
present provisional governor of South Carolina, Mr. Per- 
ry, so judiciously selected a few months since by Presi- 
dent Johnson to assist in the important work of recon- 
struciion^ now in such successful progress, and whose con- 
duct in this high and responsible station has gained for 
him a position so enviable in the estimation of his coun- 
trymen every where. It is a somewhat curious and 
pleasing coincidence that Governor Perry, of South Car- 
olina, and Governor Sharkey, of Mississippi, without 
knowing each other personally, as I am informed, not 
only took the same moderate and patriotic course in 
1850 and 1851, but some six or seven years later distin- 



STRUGGLE FOR DISUNION IN GEORGIA. 171 

guished themselves alike in opposing the reopening of 
the African slave-trade ; and now, for the rendition of 
similar patriotic services to their country, they have both 
been called to take a still more prominent part in the 
councils of the nation as co-members of the United States 
Senate. Georgia and Mississippi were, in 1850, the only 
states in the South, except South Carolina herself, who 
had not yet yielded formal assent to the compromise 
measures, and whose ultimate action in this regard was 
at all doubtful. In the former state a Union organiza- 
tion was speedily set on foot, mainly under the auspices 
of Messrs. Stephens, Toombs, and Cobb, which very soon, 
in entire disregard of ancient party prejudices and obli- 
gations, brought into hearty and effective co-operation all 
the conservative elements of the state, and a large pro- 
portion also of the ability which had previously displayed 
itself in this intelligent and populous commonwealth. 
A well-known struggle had at that period its progress in 
Georgia, which resulted in the signal triumph of Mr. 
Cobb for the office of governor, and in obtaining an em- 
phatic popular endorsement of the principles embodied 
in what has been known as the Georgia ])latform. ISTo 
one can now doubt that, had this important contest re- 
sulted differently, the civil war which has of late so un- 
happily occurred would have had its dark and doleful 
progress ten years earlier. South Carolina only waited 
for the co-operation of a single state beyond her own 
borders, and was prepared to consummate her well-ma- 
tured project of separation whenever it should be ascer- 
tained that she would not stand absolutely alone in the 
contemplated struggle. 



172 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

The course of events at tlie same period in Mississippi 
is a part of the painful history of the country, and must 
therefore be passed in review ; but I shall labor to be as 
concise on this branch of the subject as is possible, by 
reason of my own personal connection with the scenes 
which then occurred. It had been my fortune to stand 
alone in Congress in 1850, from the State of Mississippi, 
as a supporter of the compromise enactments. All my 
five colleagues in the two houses were zealously opposed 
to these measures, and closely banded themselves togeth- 
er, in order to make their opposition to them more effect- 
ual among the people of Mississippi than it had been in 
Washington City. The governor of the state, General 
Quitman, was in close alliance with them, as were more 
than two thirds of the Legislature, and as large a propor- 
tion of all the public ofiicers of the state. The Legisla- 
ture was persuaded to censure me by formal resolutions, 
which had been most widely disseminated. Nearly ev- 
ery newspaper in the state condemned my conduct in 
Congress, and I was daily subjected in their columns to 
such bitter and violent denunciation as few men, I am 
persuaded, have been fated to experience. A new polit- 
ical organization was set on foot at the capital of the 
state, which was quickly ramified into every county and 
neighborhood in Mississippi, whose avowed aim it was to 
unite with the State of South Carolina in the extreme 
policy which she had avowed, and into this organization 
were invited all who concurred in opposing the measures 
of compromise, without regard to their former party ties 
or designation. It was most manifest that I had now 
naught upon which to rely save the protecting aid of a 



NOBLE CONDUCT OF MR. CLAY. 173 

bounteous Providence, the good sense and sterling patri- 
otism of the popular masses, my own zeal and activity, 
and the generous and manly aid of such friends of the 
cause of the Union, either in Mississippi or elsewhere, as 
might judge me worthy of their sympathy and counte- 
nance. Among these friends was the august chief of the 
Compromise* himself, whose voluntary and active zeal in 
my support at this crisis was as unexpected, and as unso- 
licited also, as it was profoundly gratifying. Without 
my knowledge, Mr. Clay addressed letters to his numer- 
ous political friends in Mississippi in my behalf, which I 
met wherever I went in the canvass I had afterward to 
perform, and which called around me every where en- 

* Of course, I here allude to Mr. Clay. Before leaving this topic, I can 
not refrain from mentioning, in this unimposing form, a touching inci- 
dent that had occurred a few weeks before the scene above described, 
which is worthy of preservation, as giving evidence of ^Ir. Clay's tender- 
ness of heart and generously sympathizing nature. On reaching Wash- 
ington City, after the contest between Messrs. Quitman and Davis, as the 
champions of disunion, and myself, I called on jMr. Clay, in company with 
Wm. II. King, of Alabama, and Daniel S. Dickinson, of New York. Ho 
entertained a high esteem and warm friendship for both these gentlemen, 
and met them, on this occasion, with the most graceful and impressive 
display of cordiality. After he had sainted tliem, I approached him, 
when, feeble as he was, he rushed toward me and seized me in his arms, 
manifesting every token of the deepest inward emotion, and uttered 
words of congratulation and gratitude commingled which I may not now 
recite. Suffice it to say, that the honor then bestowed on me by this 
great and good man has ever since been cherished as one of the proudest 
and most gratifying recollections of a life of suffering and vicissitudes, 
and has been often since a source of consolation when assailed by the low- 
minded, the envious, and the malignant ; nor would I now exchange the 
remembered delights of that moment for all the dignities which tho 
crowned monarchs of earth have it in their power to confer. 



174 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

thusiastic and valuable supporters, without whose zeal- 
ous aid it would have been altogether impossible for 
me to weather the rude gales with which my frail polit- 
ical bark had now to contend. Nor was this conduct on 
the part of Mr. Clay at all surprising, under all the cir- 
cumstances which had been recently occurring. It was 
true that I had opposed, in a temperate and courteous 
manner, in the beginning of the session of 1849, '50, the 
programme which Mr. Clay first laid before the Senate, 
that programme containing, as all intelligent men know, 
an abstract assertion of the power of Congress to prohibit 
slavery in the territories, and to abolish it in the District of 
Columbia ; a declaration of opinion in regard to the right 
of Texas to the disputed territory afterward conceded to 
her, and a claim of separate admission in behalf of Cali- 
fornia — in regard to neither of which points could I agree 
with him. But when he had, with true practical wisdom, 
and with the most singular elevation of spirit, declined to 
press either of the disputed points, and consented to be- 
come our leader in a scheme of general adjustment, I 
hope that no one in Congress evinced for him a more 
uniform and truly deferential respect than I did, or fought 
under his command, according to the very limited meas- 
ure of my abilities (and always, as I have ever confessed, 
in a very subordinate position), than I did. Perhaps I 
ought to have confidently anticipated this sympathy and 
support from Mr. Clay, after having heard him declare in 
the hall of the old Confederate Congress at Annapolis, in 
the eventful summer of 1850, while standing precisely 
upon that part of the floor of that hallowed edifice where 
he learned that "Washington had stood when, after the 



CONTEST FOR DISUNION IN MISSISSIPPI. 175 

war of the Kevolution, he surrendered his sword to his re- 
deemed country's representatives, that henceforward that 
party should he his imrty that showed itself to he most fait!) fid 
in defending and in maintaining the Union of our fathers. 

I shall leave it to some other to record (if any perma- 
nent recollection of it shall be deemed desirable) what 
took place in Mississippi during the autumn of 1850 and 
the summer and autumn of 1851, when, as candidate for 
governor upon the Union ticket, I had first to encoun- 
ter General John A. Quitman as an opponent, and subse- 
quently, upon his withdrawal from the contest, the now 
world - renowned Jefferson Davis. I shall not in these 
pages minutely tell how the Union cause became finally 
triumphant ; how the people of Mississippi, as the result 
of a severe political contest, determined that I should 
serve them in the office of governor in preference to 
either of my more popular military competitors, and be 
again returned as their representative in the national 
Senate, to the seat which I formerly occupied in that 
body (having resigned it at the demand of the friends 
of the Union, in order to test more fully the strength of 
the compromise measures with which I was supposed to 
be specially identified) ; how a majority of senators in 
the state Legislature, Secessionists in creed, and holding 
over from another election, refused to go into a joint 
legislative convention in order to choose a United States 
senator at the time provided for by law, avowedly for the 
purpose of defeating my election, they knowing well that 
in such joint convention I would have a majority of more 
than thirty votes ; how the Union organization was af- 
terward unfortunately thrown into a state of partial dis- 



176 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

solution in consequence of tlie coming on of the presi- 
dential election of 1852 ; liow the same organization was 
fatally enfeebled by the direct intermeddling of the ad- 
ministration of Mr. Pierce, and by the corrupt employ- 
ment of of&cial patronage ; how afterward the Secession- 
ists of Mississippi, adroitly taking back the name oi Dem- 
ocrat^ which they had once solemnly and formally relin- 
quished, suddenly recuperated their strength by the an- 
nouncement of a new political issue involving the shame- 
less and disgraceful repudiation of the Planters' Bank 
bonds, the validity of which stood explicitly and em- 
phatically guaranteed by the state Constitution ; how, in 
consequence of this last most opprobrious act, openly 
countenanced and undeniably participated in by Mr. 
Davis himself, I indignantly resigned the office of gov- 
ernor and migrated to the far-distant coast of California ; 
how, even in California, I was afterward pursued by the 
remorseless vengeance of Mr. Davis and his cabinet al- 
lies, who, learning that I had been taken up by a large 
majority of the California Legislature as a candidate for 
the national Senate, mainly on the ground of my known 
devotion to the Union, and my openly-declared opposi- 
tion to their corrupt use of the patronage of the govern- 
ment, again contrived, by employing exactly the same 
means which had been so successfully exerted for a sim- 
ilar purpose two years before in Mississippi, to defeat a 
joint legislative Convention by the vote of a bare majority 
in the state Senate, in each instance creating a vacancy 
in the senatorial representation of a sovereign state — all 
these things, thus runningly suggested, I now dismiss, 
and proceed to other matters of higher dignity. 



V 



GENERAL ACQUIESCENCE IN THE COMPROMISE. 177 

After the result of the contests in Georgia and in Mis- 
sissippi to which I have just referred, the good people of 
South Carolina, being summoned by the champions of 
extreme measures to assemble in convention for the pur- 
pose of adopting an ordinance of secession, and having 
the question fairly submitted to them whether they would 
separately secede or await the co-operation of other states, 
decided in favor of the latter proposition. So the*" irre- 
pressible conflict" was at least brought to a pause; an in- 
termissive j)eriod of peace and good- will was allowed to 
have place, and the movements of sectional factionists on 
either side of the line of separation between the slave- 
holding and non-slaveholding portions of the Union were 
suspended for a season, and, indeed, until similar causes 
should beget similar consequences. Mr. Greeley, in his 
"American Conflict," is therefore fully justified in say- 
ing, as he does in the beginning of his sixteenth chapter, 
"But, whatever theoretic or practical objections may bo 
justly made to the Compromise of 1850, there can be no 
doubt that it was accepted and ratified by a great major- 
ity of the American people, whether in the North or in 
the South. They were intent on business, then remark- 
ably prosperous — on planting, building, trading, and get- 
ting gain, and they hailed with general joy the announce- 
ment that all the differences between the diverse 'sec- 
tions' had been adjusted and settled. The terms of set- 
tlement were, to that majority, of quite subordinate con- 
sequence; they wanted peace and prosperity, and were 
nowise inclined to cut each others' throats and burn each 
others' houses in a quarrel concerning (as they regarded 
it) only the status of negroes. The compromise had taken 

n2 



178 SCYLLA AND CHAKYBDIS. 

no money from their pockets ; it had imposed upon them 
no pecuniary burdens ; it had exposed them to no per- 
sonal and palpable dangers; it had rather repelled the 
gaunt spectre of civil war and disunion, habitually con- 
jured up when slavery had a point to carry, and increased 
the facilities for making money, while opening a bound- 
less vista of national greatness, security, and internal har- 
mony. Especially by the trading class and the great ma- 
jority of the dwellers in sea-board cities was this view 
cherished with intense, intolerant vehemence." 

Mr. Grreeley in this chapter bestows a passing attention 
upon the gubernational contest in Mississippi, of which 
I have already said as much as is necessary to be here re- 
corded, and does me the honor to state that I had "sup- 
ported the compromise in Congress to the extent of my 
(his) ability," which is certainly all that I could possibly 
claim to have done, and for this frank acknowledgment 
by him of my supposed merits, I trust he will consider 
me as being truly grateful. 

The quiet which the compromise had restored was not 
again seriously disturbed during the administration of 
Mr. Fillmore ; and it is now most evident that, had this 
gentleman, with his wise and practical conservatism, been 
chosen President instead of Mr. Pierce in 1852, and had 
the principles which so honorably distinguished his ad- 
ministration been faithfully observed by succeeding pres- 
idents, the grim demon of disunion would not have been 
conjured into existence, and the permanent discredit 
which has fallen upon our country of having permitted 
the copious outpouring of the blood of brothers upon 
their own natal soil in unnatural domestic feud would 



INFIDELITY OF MR. PIERCE TO IIIS TLEDGES. 179 

have been, in all probability, avoided for centuries, if not 
for an indefinite period. 

But such was not to be our good fortune. Mr. Pierce 
was put in nomination by the Democratic party for the 
presidency in 1852. He pledged himself most solemnly 
to recognize, in the high station to which he was about 
to be elected, the compromise measures of 1850, of which 
so much has been said in these pages already, as a ^^ final 
settlement^ in principle and in substance, of the distracting 
questions of slavery." He had been indebted for his 
nomination at Baltimore to the declarations which he 
was reported to have previously made of the duty of 
whomsoever might be constituted President so to distrib- 
ute the ofiicial patronage in his gift as to encourage the 
purest nationality of sentiment, and to discourage every 
thing like sectionalism. And yet he had scarcely been 
elected to the presidency when he called into special con- 
ference Mr. Hunter, of Virginia, one of the most extreme 
men in his opinions that, outside of South Carolina, the 
whole South contained, and the noted Caleb Cushing, of 
Massachusetts, who had signalized himself very specially, 
many years before, by delivering the most furious and 
uncompromising abolition speech ever heard in Con- 
gress upon the occasion of Arkansas asking for admis- 
sion into the Union, and who, although he had afterward 
yielded support to the administration of Mr. Tyler for a 
short period, for which his services had been rewarded 
with an Oriental commissionership, and had subsequent- 
ly given his support to the Mexican War. and gone 
through certain romantic adventures beyond the Eio 
Grande without having a chance of staining his virgin 



180 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

sword with the hated blood of the foe, had really not a 
particle of claim to control the action of a Democratic 
administration entering upon its official career under 
such circumstances as those which now surrounded Mr. 
Pierce. These two sage advisers are understood to have 
counseled Mr. Pierce to call to his cabinet Mr. Jefferson 
Davis, of Mississippi, who was then in profound retire- 
ment after his unsuccessful experiment of secession in 
1851, in which retirement it is quite certain he would 
have permanently remained but for Mr. Pierce being 
weak enough to act upon this advice. It is understood 
that this particular appointment was made with a view 
to conciliating the Secessionists of the South, who had 
yielded to Mr. Pierce but a cold and reluctant support ; 
many of them, indeed, and especially in Mr. Davis's own 
state, having altogether declined voting in the election. 
Mr. Gushing, who was to be attorney general of the new 
regime^ had reason to believe that, by force of early polit- 
ical affiliations, and by the skillful distribution of the 
spoils of office, he could bring into the fold all the aspi- 
rants to public station who then belonged to the aboli- 
tion faction in the North, while Mr. Davis, by discrimina- 
ting in appointments to office in favor of known disun- 
ionists, and against those who had battled so faithfully 
for the compromise measures throughout the South, it 
was confidently expected would work wonders in attract- 
ing to the support of his over-confiding chief the section- 
al factionists of that region. It was, fancifully enough, 
supposed that the friends of the Union every where would 
infallibly remain firm in the support of Mr. Pierce on the 
ground of his former professions, so that there was, upon 



MISCniEVOUS TREACHERY OF MR. PIERCP]. 181 

the whole, as they opined, a capital prospect opening 
upon the country of an administration of four years which 
would be fortunate enough to encounter no enemies, and 
an equally flattering prospect that Mr. Pierce would him- 
self be re-elected in 1856, or that the privilege would be 
accorded to him by a grateful country of nominating his 
own successor. How signally and cruelly all these fine- 
spun calculations were disappointed in the sequel, and 
how soon all these vapid and airy speculations were fated 
to pass away into tbe sombre region of nothingness^ the 
world now knows. Mr. Pierce, who imagined himself to 
have, and was supposed by some of his friends to have 
quite a pretty talent for declamatory rhetoric, commenced, 
so soon as he had a chance to do so, discoursing, in his 
messages and otherwise, of the blessings of slavery ; ex- 
tolled the South, and her modes of tliought and senti- 
ment, in language of glowing exuberance; announced 
himself to all the world as the champion of her slave- 
holding rights and interests ; and very soon managed to 
disgust most heartily every truly national man in the 
country; while his lavish outpouring of the sheaves of 
political patronage upon the Democratic free-soilers of 
the North enabled the Eepublican faction in the end to 
redeem itself most effectually from the discredit into 
which it had been plunged during the period of Mr. Fill- 
more's administration, building it up and strengthening 
it greatly for the expected presidential contest of 1856. 
Meanwhile Mr. Pierce and his cabinet assistants openly 
and unblushingly interfered in all the political elections 
in the states, employed patronage every where in order 
to control votes, and spread throughout the reiDublic 



182 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

sucli an abominable spirit of huckstering and corrupt 
political bargaining as even Walpole, in his palmiest clays 
of official glory, had never been able to call into exist- 
ence. In less than a twelve-month after Mr. Pierce's in- 
duction into the presidency, every man of solid under- 
standing, both in Congress and elsewhere, who had aided 
this ill-starred scion of the Granite State in reaching the 
presidency, became satisfied that he was utterly incompe- 
tent for the performance of the high duties which had 
devolved upon him, and honest men every where were 
filled with mingled amazement and disgust at nearly all 
that was from time to time reported to be occurring un- 
der his sinister auspices either at home or abroad. Such 
men as Daniel S. Dickinson and the lamented Justice 
Bronson, of New York, and many other Democrats of al- 
most equal eminence elsewhere, were driven into oppo- 
sition by such acts of official arrogance and follj^ as are 
rarely known to mark the course of public events in a 
free country ; and innumerable official blunders, Ostend 
manifestoes, and such 'like vagaries included, soon made 
Mr. Pierce and his cabinet as sublimely ridiculous before 
the world at large, as their domestic economy had ren- 
dered them alike powerful for mischief and impotent for 
good within the confines of their own country. 

Yery unfortunately for that country, and, as I must 
think, for Mr. Douglas's own well-earned fame, this gen- 
tleman was induced, under very strong solicitations from 
various individuals of the extreme Southern school, and 
by the persuasions likewise of at least one member of 
Mr. Pierce's cabinet, connected with something like half 
promises of future political support, to originate, or rath- 



STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 183 

er to adopt from a Southern source, a new scliemc of 
action iu regard to the then suppressed issue of slavery, 
which, in its rapid development, was productive of re- 
newed agitation both in the South and in the North, a 
view of the consequences of which, had he been able at 
that time to descry them in the future history of his 
country, would have effectually deterred one of his patri- 
otic impulses from running the fiery and troublous career 
which was presently to open before him, and which was 
in a few years to fill his bosom with poignant anguish, 
to surround him with innumerable and irreconcilable 
foes, to break down even his Herculean physical frame, 
and to conduct him, amid the opening scenes of a fearful 
civil war, to a premature grave. I am understood, of 
course, as referring to the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, which 
was made to contain a provision for repealing the Mis- 
souri Compromise, or, rather (which was virtually the 
same thing), declaring the Missouri Compromise restrict- 
ive clause to be repugnant to the principle of non-inter- 
vention^ which constituted the chief feature of the Compro- 
mise of 1850. I shall not now expatiate upon the Kansas- 
Nebraska Bill. The world knows all its fatal provisions 
by heart, and our country has freely bled over these same 
provisions. I certainly never regarded any part of the 
bill as unconstitutional, nor do I consider it to have made 
war directly upon any principle embodied in the compro- 
mise measures of 1850 ; but I have ever been of opin- 
ion that this new arrangement was altogether repugnant 
to the spirit in which the compromise measures of 1850 
had been framed, and palpably violative of the principle 
o^ finality upon which the peace of the country had been 



184 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

expected to repose. I do personally know that it was 
not at all intended by Mr. Clay and those who co-oper- 
ated with him in 1850, to interfere at all with the Mis- 
souri Compromise. It was contemplated that the ques- 
tioii whether the restrictive clause in that compromise 
was or was not valid was to be left to the courts, and I 
will add, that some of us in 1850 acted in this matter 
upon the conviction which we had then clearly formed, 
and on several occasions had also expressed, that the Su- 
preme Court of the United States, when that tribunal 
should be appealed to, would render just such a decision 
upon the constitutionality of the restrictive act of 1820 
as has since been promulged. I confess that, notwith- 
standing my profound respect for Mr. Douglas, whose 
presidential aspirations in 1860 evoked my hearty sup- 
port, I could not but be most painfully surprised when, 
away off upon the Pacific coast, I learned that he had 
consented, under any persuasions whatever, to be the 
chief actor in a proceeding which it seemed to me must 
inevitably renew slavery agitation ; and especially was 
this the case, when I reflected upon the fact that he had 
objected even to the finality resolution introduced by me 
in the Senate in the winter of 1852, not at all upon the 
ground that he did not entirely approve its object^ but 
alone^ and most emphatically, upon the ground that it 
might by possibility renew' sectional strife. It is really 
painful to look back upon the past, and observe that, even 
in the early part of the Thirty-third Congress, Mr. Doug- 
las had himself brought in a well-written and most delib- 
erate report, in which he had used the following clear 
and explicit language ; referring to the restrictive provi- 



KANSAS-NEBRASKA BILL. 185 

sion ill the Missouri Compromise, lie says: "Under this 
section, as in the case of the Mexican law in New Mexi- 
co and Utah, it is a disputed point whether slavery is 
prohibited in the Nebraska country by valid enactment. 
The decision of this question involves the constitutional 
power of Congress to pass laws prescribing and regula- 
tinsf the domestic institutions of the various territories of 
the Union. In the opinion of those eminent statesmen 
who hold that Congress is invested with no rightful au- 
thority to legislate upon the subject of slavery in the 
territories, the 8th section of the act preparatory to the 
admission of Missouri is null and void ; while the pre- 
vailing sentiment in large portions of the Union sustains 
the doctrine that the Constitution of the United States 
secures to every citizen an inalienable right to move into 
any of the territories with his property, of whatever kind 
and description, and to hold and enjoy the same under the 
sanction of law. Your committee do not feel themselves 
called upon to enter upon the discussion of these contro- 
verted questions. They involve the same grave issues 
which produced the agitation, the sectional strife, and the 
fearful struggle of 1850. As Congress deemed it wise 
and prudent to refrain from deciding the matter in contro- 
versy then, either by affirming or repealing the Mexican 
laws, or by an act declaratory of the true intent of the 
Constitution, and the extent of the protection afforded by 
it to slave property in the territories, so your committee 
are not prepared to recommend a departure from the 
course pursued on that memorable occasion, either by af- 
firming or repealing the Sth section of the Missouri act, or hj 
any act declaratory of the meaning of the Constitution in re- 
sioect to the legal p)oints in dispideP 



186 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

The two august chiefs of the compromise, Mr. Clay and 
Mr. Webster, were now, alas, in their graves. Had they 
continued to live, I am satisfied that no controversial dis- 
cussion of this fearful question would have occurred of a 
nature calculated inevitably to sweep away in its course^ 
as with the besom of destruction, slavery and all the ex- 
isting legal regulations connected therewith. The verifi- 
cation of Mr. Clay's prophecy on this subject we are all 
now witnessing, some with feelings of tribulation, and 
some with those of rejoicing ; the work of sectional agi- 
tation has been productive of its natural consequences^ and 
in the presence of that startling social revolution which, 
under the providence of God, has been effected through- 
out that region once devoted to slavery, who, among 
those that have been so criminally unmindful of the dan- 
gers so often pointed out in language that would not 
have been unworthy of the most gifted of the Apostles, 
shall now presume to complain at the realization of a 
state of things which naught but a strict and faithful ad- 
herence to the solid guarantees of the Federal Constitu- 
tion, and the doing nothing to undermine and enfeeble 
them, could possibly have averted? 

And now, before taking final leave of Mr. Clay and 
Mr. Webster, let me offer one or two observations upon 
each of them. 

Those who have heard Mr. Clay upon great occasions 
admit that he was, upon the whole, the most winning, 
electrical, and truly commanding speaker that has ap- 
peared in America during the present century. His con- 
versational powers were almost equally remarkable, and 
there was an irresistible charm, both in his aspect, voice, 



HENRY CLAY— HIS GREAT ABILITIES. 187 

and manner, when lie chose to exert his social powers 
fully. He was the frankest of men, and was far too fear- 
less of soul to seek safety in the concealment of his opin- 
ions on any subject, or in the profession of sentiments of 
esteem and kindness for individuals which he did not 
really feel. It is now well known that he could have 
been president in 1844: had he chosen to yield the special 
pledge as to his course upon the slavery question which 
the Abolition supporters of Mr. Birney sought, in a clan- 
destine manner, to obtain from him. There was no pub- 
lic measure of an important character in relation to which 
the humblest of his fellow-citizens could not have obtain- 
ed his opinions by making courteous application there- 
for. He was never suspected of unfairness or dishon- 
est intrigue, except in connection with Mr. Adams's elec- 
tion in 1825 ; and I may be excused for here stating that 
I was present, in the summer of 1850, on a convivial oc- 
casion of some note, when he adverted to this subject in 
a pleasant and condescending manner, and gave utterance 
to a very frank declaration which was exceedingly grati- 
fying to all present. It was at the celebrated dinner- 
party at the hospitable mansion of Mr. Sullivan, in Wash- 
ington City, when the venerable Kitchie, his early friend 
and associate in Eichmond before he had commenced 
his brilliant career in the West, and who, after long es- 
trangement, had been recently reconciled to him, in a 
manner half jocose, half serious, told him that if he car- 
ried through the compromise measures, and would prom- 
ise never again to be a candidate for the presidency, he 
would, if he should survive him, plant a sprig of laurel 
upon his grave. Mr. Clay, kindly adverting to the long- 



188 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

continued opposition of the Kiclimoncl Enquirer to liis 
political advancement, and the grounds upon which that 
opposition had been based, said, that though his motives 
in voting for Mr. Adams, in the Congress of 1824-'5, 
were as pure as it was possible for them to have been, 
and though, were the election to come over again, he 
would have to vote precisely as he had done on that oc- 
casion, yet that, after the painful experience which he 
had had of the mischievous effects growing out of his ac- 
ceptance under Mr. Adams of the Department of State, 
nothing could induce him to receive any official appoint- 
ment at his hands. He confessed that this was a most 
serious official blunder, and had greatly impaired his pub- 
lic usefulness. 

Linn Boyd, former speaker of the House of Kepresent- 
atives, called upon me one morning during the tempestu- 
ous session of 1850, and informed me that he had been 
for many years a bitter political adversary of Mr. Clay, 
and that he had, for a series of years, pressed with great 
earnestness the famous charge of hargain and intrigue 
against him connected with the election of Mr. Adams ; 
declared that he had been greatly struck with Mr. 
Clay's patriotic course in the advocacy of the compro- 
mise measures, and asked that I would call upon that 
gentleman and request on his behalf a face to face inter- 
view, that he might have an opportunity of making the 
amende honorable as to past unkindnesses. I readily un- 
dertook the mission propounded, and very soon had the 
gratification of witnessing a thorough reconcilement be- 
tween them. Several years after Mr. Clay's decease, I 
was called upon by Boyd, when very hotly pressed in a 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 189 

political canvass in -wliich be was then engaged in the 
State of Kentucky, to bear written testimony tothe trans- 
action just related, which of course I could not refuse to do. 
Of Mr. Webster I hesitate to speak. He was so much 
superior in power of thought, in grandeur of conception, 
in genuine logical power, in condensed vigor of expres- 
sion, in brilliancy of fancy, in sprightly and amiable face- 
tiousness, in the richest stores of well-digested knowledge, 
whether scholastic, scientific, or practical, to any other 
public man that I have had the fortune to know, or that 
I have ever heard described, that I have no words in 
which to express my admiration of him. I never heard 
him talk at his own table, where, though the most modest 
of men, at the instance of cherished friends, he sometimes 
conversed freely, that I did not sigh for the presence of a 
reporter to take down the golden words that came with 
such a delightful impressiveness from his lips. I never 
heard him speak in the Senate on any occasion whatev- 
er, when every sentence which he uttered was not fit to 
be put in print. Who has ever read a paragraph of his 
masterly composition and desired to change a syllable? 
Then his heart was so kind, his manners were so cordial, 
his aspect and demeanor so marked with touching sim- 
plicity and unartificial dignity, that, had he not spoken a 
word, he must yet have been loved and venerated. The 
last time that I beheld this remarkable person was on an 
occasion which no man that witnessed it can ever forget. 
On the morning previous to my taking leave of the na- 
tional Senate to return to my own home in Mississippi, 
to buffet billows with which I was little able to contend, 
I chanced to be present at a banqueting scene, to which, 



190 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

having been long since depictured by others, I may now 
for a moment recur. In a large room in the lower story 
of Brown's Hotel, in Washington, a large convivial com- 
pany was assembled. Most of the cabinet functionaries 
of Mr. Fillmore were present, a considerable proportion of 
the ministers from foreign countries in attendance upon 
the government, and some six or eight of the members 
of Congress then in session. 

The dinner was capital, the wine was most select, the 
banqueters apparently most happy. Having to leave 
the city in the cars next morning, and not having yet 
completed my preparations for the journey, I rose up 
while my social companions were still absorbed in the 
delightful interchange of thought and sentiment, and not 
wishing to disturb the scene, made an effort to steal 
away. I soon found this to be impossible. "Whether 
what follows was the result of previous arrangement I 
know not, nor have I ever thought it needful to inquire ; 
but this is precisely what did in point of fact occur : Mr. 
Webster, rising, and followed by the rest of the compa- 
ny, approached me as I was retiring, and presently ad- 
dressed me, in the name of those present, an affection- 
ate valedictory, such as he who hears can never forget. 
He spoke for some five or ten minutes in prose, referring 
to the various interesting public scenes which had recent- 
ly occurred, and presently, without confusion or hesita- 
tion, he adopted the language of poetry, and poured forth 
some twenty or thirty couplets, which either Pope or Dry- 
den, Byron or Moore, might have envied, all perfectly 
germain to the topics upon which he had been descant- 
ing, and evidently improvised at the moment, and con- 



''DANIEL WEBSTER STILL LIVES." 191 

eluded by wishing me, in the name of all, an afFectionate 
farewell. It has been published, years ago, that I was 
dumbfounded by this extraordinary address. I shall not 
say whether this is altogether true or not ; but certainly, 
if I uttered any thing in response, it is all now lost to my 
memory in the overwhelming recollection of this most 
stupendous display of genius on the part of the wonder- 
ful personage of whom I have been speaking. "Daniel 
Webster still lives," and ever luill continue to live^-in the 
admiration and affection of the luise, the jpatriotic^ and the 
virtuous ! ! 

How surprised and indignant must the intelligent and 
magnanimous of other generations inevitably be on learn- 
ing, as they will unfortunately do, that even such a man 
as this, compounded as he was of all the nobler and more 
gracious elements of our nature, was not permitted to es- 
cape the rough and heartless assaults of cold-blooded 
and mercenary calumniators when living, nor, even after 
death, suffered to remain quietly inurned, without being 
subjected to the objurgatory malevolence of some who 
knew him familiarly while still lingering in the realms of 
mortality, and whose most pleasant duty it should have 
been to keep his august and sacred name forever bright 
and untarnished, and continually to scatter laurels of un- 
fading honor over and around that sequestered tomb 
which holds all that now remains of the most grandly and 
variously gifted man that has ever yet borne the proud 
name oi American! 



192 SCYLLA AND CHAKYBDIS. 



CHAPTER XL 

Excited Struggle in Congress over the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. — Manly 
but ineffectual Opposition to that Bill in Congress. — Regret expressed 
at the Disappearance from the public Scene of Mr. Clay, Mr. Webster, 
and Mr. Calhoun. — Confident Opinion expressed as to what would have 
been Mr. Calhoun's Course had he survived up to our Times. — Fearful 
awakening of sectional Excitement both in the South and in the North 
under the Influence of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. — Multipjlied Scenes 
of Blood and Violence in the. Territory of Kansas. — Mr. Pierce and his 
Cabinet lose the Confidence of all Men of true Nationality of Sentiment. 
— Mr, Pierce defeated in the Cincinnati Democratic Convention by Mr. 
Buchanan, who is afterward elected to the Presidency by a plurality 
Vote over Fremont and Fillmore. — Mr. Buchanan delivers an Inaugu- 
ral Address as President, replete with national Sentiment, which at- 
tracts to him the Support of the American Party, and his Administra- 
tion grows overwhelmingly popular. — He afterward treacherously vio- 
lates all his Promises to the Country under the Threats of Southern Se- 
cession Leaders, and his Administration suddenly becomes both odious 
and contemptible.— The Democratic Party of the North completely 
crushed and broken down by the fatal Lecompton Issue, and the way 
surely paved for the Election of a Republican President in I860.— Re- 
view of the State of Parties at that Period.— Some Notice of the Amer- 
ican Party and its ]iarticular Tenets.— Great Mistake of the Southern 
People in not yielding their Support to Mr. Fillmore in 185G.— Some 
Notice of the Republican Candidates for President and Vice-President 
in 1856, and of certain curious Scenes which took place during the 
short period of General Fremont's official Connection with that Body. 
—Sketch of General Baker, one of the earliest Victims of the War, and a 
recital of certain romantic Occurrences connected with his Residence 
in California and Oregon.— Signal Triumph of his extraordinary ora- 
torical Powers over popular Excitement and Prejudice. 

So was it with onr country- in the latter part of Mr. 



STORMY DEBATE — BADGER AND BELL. * 193 

Pierce's administration. Clay, Webster, and Calhoun 
were no longer upon the arena of public action. Those 
who had taken their places possessed but little of the 
wisdom with which these great statesmen had showed 
themselves to be endowed. Greneral Cass, one of the 
few men at that time in Congress that had either suffi- 
cient power as a parliamentary speaker, or sufficient 
weight of character to render innocuous the elements of 
mischief then at work, was, at this particular moment, 
neither so active nor observant as usual, by reason of a 
severe domestic misfortune which had just fallen upon 
him, and which I personally know to have much de- 
pressed his spirits and enfeebled his energies. Others 
there were in the national councils from whom a far 
wiser and more conservative course was to have been ex- 
pected at this crisis, but who had, in the Kansas-lTebras- 
ka struggle, strangely disappointed the public hopes. Mr. 
Badger, of North Carolina, honest, enlightened, and pa- 
triotic, a learned jurist, a calm and methodical debater, 
who had been, during all his antecedent life, remarkable 
for his moderation and forbearance, had for a moment 
joined the extremists of the South in giving his high 
sanction to a rupture of the compact of 1850 ; while Mr. 
Bell, of Tennessee, always able, but most generally, from 
a certain modesty of temperament, a little slow and inde- 
cisive in his movements, had at this time been seen to 
exert more than his habitual energy, had both zealous- 
ly and manfully confronted all who showed themselves 
to be inclined to measure swords with him, and had 
fearlessly and vigorously 'essayed to throttle the monster 

I 



194 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

of sectionalism on the floor of the Senate, ere yet, like 
Eolus, he should succeed in unchaining all the winds of 
heaven once more, which had been now for nearly four 
years quietly sleeping in their caves. But Mr. Toombs 
was there, that Mirabeau of the South, fervid, impas- 
sioned, eloquent, bold, defiant, arrogant, high-souled, and 
generous, but self-reliant, dogmatical, and reckless — bet- 
ter fitted than any man I have yet seen to conjure np a 
sudden storm of popular excitement, but sadly deficient 
in that calmness of soul so indispensable to the attain- 
ment of nearly all great public ends ; and beside him 
stood others, who, though perchance not possessed alto- 
gether of equal power in discussion or equal audacity of 
spirit, were yet able to lend considerable aid in such a 
confused struggle as was then going forward. 

I have alluded to Mr. Calhoun as one of those whose 
decease had deprived the public councils of a man who 
would not at this conjuncture, had he been living, have 
lent his great powers, and, if possible, still greater person- 
al weight and influence, to the side of agitation and dis- 
cord. I feel that I speak advisedly on this subject. A 
few months subsequent to the death of this extraordinary 
man in 1850, General James Hamilton, of South Caroli- 
na, one of his most trusted friends, and who had much 
familiar conversation with Mr. Calhoun a few days only 
before he ceased to live, published, about twelve months 
thereafter, a long and interesting letter, in which he em- 
phatically denied that Mr. Calhoun, had he continued 
alive, would have yielded his sanction to that scheme of 
rebellion against the national government which others 



• JOHN C. CALHOUN. 195 

were at the very moment of the publication of this im- 
portant letter so indiscreetly and causelessly attempting ; 
and I can not but believe that Mr. Calhoun, who never 
claimed for the South aught but that she ^^ should he let 
ahne^''^ who had even refused his assent to the proposi- 
tion made by General Jackson, during his last of&cial 
term, to interfere to some extent with the freedom of 
mail communications, avowedly with a view to preventing 
the circulation through the slaveholding regions of incen- 
diary documents, would neither have given his sanction to 
the infamous Lecompton Constitution, fastened, or rather 
attempted to be fastened, upon the necks of a free people, 
without their consent and in undeniable opposition to 
their wishes ; nor would so sober-minded and circumspect 
a man as Mr. Calhoun have been found, in 1861, co-oper- 
ating with those inconsiderate and ill-judging Southern 
members of Congress who abandoned their seats merely 
because a presidential election had taken place, for the 
result of which they had made themselves chiefly respon- 
sible, before even any overt act violative of the rights of 
the South had been either perpetrated or been even dis- 
tinctly menaced ; when they knew that President Lincoln 
had been elected only by a ^luraliiij of popular votes ; 
when they were also bound to know that they had it in 
their power, by acting faithfully and cordially with their 
JSTorthern political allies, infallibly to defeat all hostile 
legislation which might be attempted against them or 
those whom they represented for the four years which 
were next to pass away ere another presidential election 
would occur ; and that it was almost morally certain that 
in 1860 the reins of authority would be placed in the 



196 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

hands of a man elected conjointly by Southern votes and 
those of individuals friendly to Southern interests. And 
I will now announce my confident opinion that John C. 
Calhoun, had he survived until the eventful year of 1861, 
would have both seen and exposed the folly of going into 
so unequal and needless a war as that which has just 
closed, and especially without making some adequate 
preparation for all the terrible exigencies which were 
sure to arise therein ; that he would never have sanc- 
tioned the conduct of the suddenly improvised Montgom- 
ery government in ordering so rashly the opening of the 
bloody tragedy which has since been so memorably con- 
nected with the spilling of fraternal blood at Charleston ; 
that he would have been thoroughly nauseated with that 
compound of weakness, and corruption, and servility in 
the form of a cabinet which Mr. Davis so stupidly called 
around him, and retained, in spite of general public senti- 
ment crying aloud against those who constituted it, until 
there was no longer any hope for the cause with which 
they stood officially associated ; that he would have in- 
dignantly condemned the measures of confiscation, con- 
scription, forcible impressment, the suspension of habeas 
corpus, the proclamation of martial law, and numerous 
enactments Resides, adopted by a slavish congressional 
majority, in order to build up and arm with despotic 
, power an over - ambitious and incompetent executive 
chief; that he would still more strongly have condemned 
the general spread of corruption into all the departments, 
both principal and subordinate, of Confederate trust ; that 
he would not have hesitated, had he been destined to oc- 
cupy a seat in either of the houses of the Confederate 



JOHN C. CALHOUN. 197 

Congress, to rebuke in a style of decorous courtesy, but 
yet with true Roman-like sternness and severity, the rank 
and ever-increasing abuses of power which he would have 
plainly seen to be going on — the obstinate retention in 
the highest of&cial stations of men of depraved morals, 
and of the lowest and most profligate habitudes, the 
heartless persecution of the most meritorious military 
commanders, and the elevation over their heads of those 
whose single claim to promotion was a groveling and ab- 
ject devotion to their executive chief; and lastly, that 
Mr. Calhoun, that honest and inflexible supporter of the 
rights of the states and of the essential muniments of free- 
dom, would not have failed to denounce with all the pow- 
er which a pure heart, a cultivated intellect, and a lordly 
spirit could confer, the wretched and fantastical scheme 
of setting on foot in the ancient and time-honored city of 
Richmond an irresponsible military despotism which, con- 
joined with the foul and bloody tyranny now essaying 
to establish itself upon the bosom of downtrodden Mex- 
ico, and the already organized and wide-sweeping impe- 
rial government of France, it was presumptuously and 
madly hoped would, after a while, prominently partici- 
pate in dominating over the wide-spread affairs of both 
the eastern and western hemispheres. 

But it is a little too early for me to descant upon these 
topics; let me offer a few additional ohservations upon 
the immediate consequences arising from the adoption of 
the Kansas-lSTebraska Bill. 

1 shall decline the presentation of any detailed account 
of the multiplied efforts which were now made, both in 
certain states of New England and in several of the cot- 



198 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

ton-growing states of the South, to obtain mastery upon 
the new arena of contention which had been opened to 
them, so unwisely, on the sunset side of the Father of 
Waters. I have no taste for depicturing the schemes of 
hot-headed and unreasoning sectionalists, whether located 
in the famed land of the Pilgrims, or amid the fair savan- 
nas of the South, or the teeming alluvial regions of the 
far Southwest. A sober and thoughtful posterity will, I 
fancy, feel but little interest in the operations of "New 
England Emigrant Aid Societies," or in the silly and 
lawless expeditions carried on in Kansas under the au- 
thority and auspices of the " Blue Lodges," the " Social 
Bands," the " Sons of the South," or any other grim and 
horrible form of ^^ Border Ruffianism^ Who first un- 
pardonably shed the blood of brothers upon the soil of 
the disputed territory ; ivlio afterward became most re- 
nowned as the unnatural conflict proceeded, either in 
slaying in open fight, in the perpetration of covert mur- 
der, in the burning of infant towns and villages, in the 
wholesale destruction of new-founded riiral settlements ; 
whether ex-senator David E. Atchison, or the now world- 
renowned Ossawatomie Brown, or perchance some other 
of the numerous armed representatives of the " antago- 
nistic elements" "of our death-impregned Federal Consti- 
tution, is to be transmitted to future generations as the 
chief hero of this disgraceful "Kansas war," the accounts 
which have reached us thus far are too vague and con- 
flicting to enable any one not already overboiling with 
partisan venom positively to determine. The successive 
advents of territorial gubernatorial missionaries of concili- 
ation^ dispatched, one after another, by the perplexed 



PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1856. 199 

and vacillating Pierce (wliose ominous comings and go- 
ings seem now, to our organs of mental vision, more like 
the changeful and flitting representations o£ a pha7iiasma' 
goria than the sober realities which the historic muse 
would gladly garner up and preserve for the inspection 
of future generations), it is best for us all should sink at 
once into obscurity. The only fact which it is essential 
now to notice is, that the scenes of contention in Kansas 
which have been thus glancingly referred to continued 
until the election and inauguration of Mr. Buchanan. 
This gentleman had been nominated over Pierce by the 
National Democratic Convention which assembled in the 
city of Cincinnati in the month of June, 1856, in spite of 
the most profuse and disgraceful use of ofl&cial patron- 
age, in order to secure the reign of the intervention policy 
by a president solemnly pledged to non-intervention. I 
believe it to be strictly true, as I heard directly from the 
lips of Mr. Buchanan afterward, that the presidential 
nomination on this occasion sought liim^ not he it. There 
were now two other presidential candidates in the field, 
Millard Fillmore and John C. Fremont. Mr. Buchanan 
was chosen President, after a very fierce and excited 
struggle, by a plurality of popular votes only, the follow- 
ing being the result of the canvass : Buchanan, 1,838,169 
votes ; Fremont, 1,841,264 ; and Mr. Fillmore, the Amer- 
ican or Union candidate, 874,534. 

I shall reserve the observations which I deem it prop- 
er to make upon Mr. Buchanan's eventful administration 
to another chapter, and bring forward at present some 
other matters needful to be considered in connection 
with subsequent events. 



200 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

It is now far too plain a proposition to be denied, that 
the South, in order to guard her slaveholding interests 
from immolation, should have thrown her whole presiden- 
tial vote to Fillmore in the contest which had just termin- 
ated. This personage was well known to be a man of the 
utmost sobriety of spirit, of unsurpassed honesty of pur- 
pose, thoroughly loyal to the Constitution and all its 
well-known guarantees. Though conscientiously opposed 
to the extension of slavery into the vacant territories by 
congressional enactment, he was equally opposed to the 
exclusion of it therefrom by a similar instrumentality. 
In other words, he was a true non-int^ventionist of the 
Clay, "Webster, and Cass school, and had given evidences 
during his former administration of his fearless devotion 
to principle, and his willingness to face all the dangers 
of anti-slavery opposition, which ought to have strongly 
commended him to the hearty support alike of the South- 
ern slaveholding interest and of the true friends of na- 
tional repose. Immediately on reaching the United 
States from a European tour, he delivered in the city of 
Albany the following noble harangue, which is, in my 
judgment, in tone and spirit, worthy of the best days of 
Athens and of Kome : 

"We see a political party presenting candidates for 
the presidency and vice-presidency, selected for the first 
time from the free states alone, with the avowed purpose 
of electing these candidates by the suffrages of one part 
of the Union only, to rule over the whole United States. 
Can it be possible that those who are engaged in such a 
measure can have seriously reflected upon the conse- 
quences which must inevitably follow in case of success ? 



MR. Fillmore's speech. 201 

Can they liave the madness or the folly to believe that 
our Southern brethren would submit to be governed by 
such a chief 111 agistrate ? Would he be required to fol- 
low the same rule prescribed by those who elected him 
in making his appointments ? If a man living south of 
Mason and Dixon's line be hot worthy to be president 
or vice-president, would it be proper to select one from 
the same quarter as one of his cabinet council, or to rep- 
resent the nation in a foreign country, or, indeed, to col- 
lect the revenue, or administer the laws of the United 
States? If not, what new rule is the President to adopt 
in selecting men for ofi&ce that the people themselves dis-' 
card in selecting him? These are serious, but practical 
questions ; and, in order to appreciate them fully, it is 
only necessary to turn the tables upon ourselves. Sup- 
pose that the South, having the majority of the electoral 
votes, should declare that they would only have slave- 
holders for president and vice-president, and should elect 
such by their exclusive suffrages to rule over us at the 
Korth, do you think we would submit to it? No, not 
for a moment. And do you believe that your Southern 
brethren are less sensitive on this subject than you are, 
or less jealous of their rights ? If you do, let me tell you 
that you are mistaken. And, therefore, you must see 
that, if this sectional party succeeds, it leads inevitably 
to the destruction of this beautiful fabric, reared by our 
forefathers, cemented by their blood, and bequeathed to 
us as a priceless inheritance." 

Doubtless these clear and manly declarations of prin- 
ciple by Mr. Fillmore did secure him, at the South, a 
large share of popular approval ; and had the public men 

12 



202 SCYLLA AND CHAEYBDIS. 

of that section been in strict unison with the more mod- 
erate and conservative doctrines of Mr. Calhoun, who is 
known very uniformly indeed (with perhaps the excep- 
tion of a portion of what was embodied by him in his last 
elaborate speech touching the admission of California) to 
have declared that all that we asked for the South was 
that she sliould he let aloiie^ it seems certain that this wor- 
thy son of the Empire State must have been chosen pres- 
ident. If a consummation so desirable had been effected, 
a repetition of the golden era which has been already de- 
scribed might have been confidently anticipated, and, in 
all probability, the noxious weed of sectionalism, which 
had sprung up and attained such rank and luxuriant 
growth during the evil days of the administration then 
just closing, would never have been able to show its 
night-shade foliage above ground. 

That sectionalism in the North had well-nigh lost .its 
vitality when Mr. Pierce came into office, is unequivocally 
attested by no less a personage than Jefferson Davis him- 
self, who, when taking a tour of observation through the 
New England States during the early part of his eccen- 
trical and oppressive administration of the Department 
of War, sojourning, as he did, for weeks at several places 
on his route, in deliberate speeches, much commended by 
confiding Union men at the time, declared that political 
abolition was then nowhere visible ; that the virus of anti- 
slavery had altogether ceased to permeate the veins and 
arteries of the body politic ; and that the slaveholding 
population of the South might safely rely in future upon 
the organic shield provided in behalf of their peculiar 
property interests by the wise and far-seeing framers of 



FREE-SOILISM SUBSIDING. 203 

the Federal Constitution. Nor wore tliese mere fanciful 
conjectures of the late High-priest of Secession of the far 
Southwest, for I do myself well recollect that, at the pe- 
riod to which I am now referring, most of the leading 
Free-soil newspaper organs had altogether ceased to agi- 
tate the slavery question in their columns, and several 
United States senators from the North, who in 1850 had 
made fierce and rampant war upon the measures of 
compromise, and upon the Fugitive Slave Law in partic- 
ular, had formally avowed their full acquiescence in all 
the wise and salutary enactments just mentioned. But, 
as before hinted, the pro-slavery champions of the South, 
since the adoption of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, had loca- 
ted themselves upon an entirely new track in regard to 
slavery ; they were by no means satisfied now with be- 
ing left undisturbed by their Northern fellow-citizens on 
the subject of slavery, and they had determined to de- 
mand of Cono;ress that their slaveholding rights should 
be given specisil j^rotection by the legislation of that body,/^*" 
the boasted guaranties of the Constitution being no lon- 
ger by them deemed sufficient. 

I have said that it was a neiv track which these gentle- 
men had now taken. I must acknowledge that the ab- 
surd and impracticable idea of congressional protection 
for slavery in the territories was not absolutely of novel 
origin, since, as has been stated, Mr. Yancey had made his 
celebrated, but wholly unsuccessful experiment in this 
behalf, upon the National Democratic Convention of 
1848, and Mr. Jefferson Davis had afterward gravely re- 
peated this experiment in 1850, when the compromise 
measures were under discussion in the Senate, but with 



204 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

a similar want of success. That this was the grand ob- 
ject which the political leaders of the South held in view 
at this period in preferring Mr. Buchanan to Mr. Fill- 
more, was more or less indicated during the session of 
the Democratic Nominating Convention in Cincinnati, by 
the new-blown support of that gentleman's claims to be 
selected as the presidential candidate of the Democratic 
party, yielded by certain well-known supporters of seces- 
sion in 1850 ; and this object became still more manifest 
in the imperious demands which these individuals' set up 
in the sequel, to be allowed absolute control over Mr. Bu- 
chanan's action in regard to slavery in the territories, 
and to use the power which they boasted of having be- 
stowed upon him as an effective instrument for their 
well-matured purpose to extend slavery by all the force 
of the national arm. 

The American party, of which Mr. Fillmore was the 
chosen champion and exponent, was mainly a Union 
party, and avowed undying opposition to sectionalism in 
any form which it miglit assume. Unfortunately for this 
party and for the country, a few overheated zealots be- 
longing to it had contrived, in several of the states, and 
especially in Virginia, to impart to it a sectarian cast. 
Wherever this occurred, of course this party had been 
signally defeated in the local elections which at that time 
took place, as it well deserved to have been. Every 
where, though, the members of this party insisted with 
equal zeal upon that particular feature of its creed from 
which its corporate name had been derived: they con- 
curred in believing that the influx of persons of foreign 
birth and training had latterly become so enormous that 



AMERICAN PARTY. 205 

tbere was serious danger that all the distinctive character- 
istics of our country would be lost. They still more pain- 
fully apprehended that, if full political rights and priv- 
ileges should be accorded to all these new-comers, and 
especially if laws should continue to be enacted by Con- 
gress which held out the most seductive rewards to all 
the paupers of foreign lands to come to our shores, the 
capacity of the American people for the task of self-gov- 
ernment might become more or less impaired, and great 
and radical mischiefs be seen to arise from the presence 
and overmastering ascendency of so large a number of 
persons in indigent circumstances, and of imperfect polit- 
ical education, in the large popular elections which must 
always be expected to control, in a greater or less de- 
gree, the operations of our complex governmental ma- 
chine. This may or may not have been an erroneous 
notion. Its discussion would be wholly profitless at pres- 
ent, as this grave question has been already definitely 
settled, and, in all probability, settled very wisely for our 
country, in view of the great and radical social changes 
which have lately taken place in the states of the South. 
But I have one observation to make here, for which I 
hope I shall be pardoned by the late vehement cham- 
pions of slavery extension: it is obvious that nothing has 
tended so fatally to weaken and undermine the slave- 
holding system recently existing in the South as this 
-VQT J foreign element^ the over-rapid strengthening of which, 
the American party, with Mr. Fillmore at its head, strug- 
gled honestly to prevent; and so well satisfied had the 
whole South become, three years ago, of the truth of this 
affirmation, that it is a well-known fact that Mr. Clement 



206 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

C. Clay, of Alabama, as a member of the Confederate 
Congress, formerly a most unqualified antagonist of the 
American cause, did not hesitate to bring forward a leg- 
islative proposition against the naturalization of foreign- 
ers in the Confederate States far more stringent in its 
terms than the platform of the American party was ever 
by its bitterest opponents accused of being — which prop- 
osition, I am prepared to assert, upon the fullest knowl- 
edge of facts, did not evoke the smallest opposition in 
either House of the legislative body referred to, or in 
newspapers wheresoever printed, in any part of the South. 
In looking back to the past, it is really not at all incuri- 
ous to observe that the Hon. Henry A. Wise, one of the 
most brilliant and electrical popular speakers that the 
South, teeming in all generations with gifted orators, has 
ever produced, at the close of his memorable canvass for 
governor of the Ancient Dominion about this period, 
standing upon the steps in front of some hotel in the city 
of "Washington, surrounded by a vast multitude of his 
then admiring friends, poured forth an exultant oration 
over the signal triumph which he had recently achieved 
upon the soil of his native state over that forlorn and 
gloomy champion of Knoiv -notliingism^ who he com- 
plained had kept his visor doiu7i over his hideous counte- 
nance on every occasion where he had met him in com- 
bat, and closing with a glowing peroration, in which he 
declared that his election to the office of governor would 
be ''the death -knell of all Pacific Eailroad schemes." 
Now at that very moment, though perhaps he did not 
know so recondite a circumstance, Mr. Buchanan had 
pledged himself, in a letter printed only west of the 



PACIFIC RAILWAY NOW A FIXED FACT. 207 

Kocky Mountains anterior to tlic presidential election, 
in wliicli he had explicitly declared himself in favor of 
the early establishment of this great highway of nations 
over the American continent. Had this usually astute 
gentleman, Governor Wise, been able, at the moment that 
he uttered this oracular declaration, to descry the untold 
mysteries of the future, he would have seen that the very 
political result of which he was then boasting would, in 
a few years, by increasing the relative strength of the 
Northern sectional majority, fatally weaken the position 
of the Southern portion of the Union, and thus, whether 
through the instrumentalities of peace or war, impart an 
irresistible impetus to that grand scheme of internal im- 
provement which, I venture to predict, will not hereafter 
encounter any serious opposition from enlightened men 
on either side of the renowned line of separation between 
the North and the South. 

Truly man 'proj^osetli^ and God disposetli ! 

Of the Eepublican standard-bearers and political plat- 
form of 1856 I shall on this occasion have but little to 
say. The newly-reorganized Free-soil party, which now 
for the first time appropriated to itself the designation 
which has been subsequently associated with so many 
signal political victories, as well as with other grand 
events which have attracted such profound attention 
throughout Christendom, had boldly placed itself upon 
unmistakable intervention ground, and had proclaimed to 
the world that " the Constitution confers sovereign power 
over the territories of the United States for their government ; 
and that^ in the exercise of this power ^ it is hoth the right and 
the duty of Congress to prohibit in the territories those twin 
relics of harhar ism ^ polygamy and slaver y^ 



208 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

Witli Mr. Dayton, tlie nominee of the Eepublican party 
for the vice-presidency, I became acquainted when I was 
myself a member of the national Senate, and I am pre- 
pared to say of him that he ever impressed me most fa- 
vorably, both in regard to his intellectual power and his 
general temper and bearing, alike in social intercourse 
and in debate ; and it can not be doubted that, had he 
been elevated in 1856 to the second office in the govern- 
ment, he would have shown himself altogether equal to 
the duties of this high position. 

I should, for certain reasons, be inclined to be absolute- 
ly silent concerning the gentleman who had become at 
this period the Eepublican nominee for the presidency, 
but that a passing notice of this personage can be hardly 
avoided in a work like the present, and but for the addi- 
tional circumstance that he has since become a prominent 
military character, whose career must be regarded as hav- 
ing more or less influience upon the general concerns of 
the republic. 

Colonel Fremont came into the United States Senate 
from California in the eventful summer of 1850, as one- 
of the senators elected from the then newly-admitted 
state of that name. He occupied a seat in that body 
only some seventeen or eighteen days altogether, his col- 
league. Dr. WilliamM. Gwin, having, with his accustom- 
ed good fortune, drawn the long senatorial term for the 
State of California, while Colonel Fremont had drawn 
the short one. The latter gentleman was not fortunate 
enous-h to secure his own re-election to the elevated sta- 
tion of which he was in 1850 for a brief space the incum- 
bent. 



COLONEL, NOW GENERAL FREMONT. 209 

There were circumstances existing at the time, and es- 
pecially my well-known variance with Colonel Benton, 
his father-in-law, which interposed insuperable impedi- 
ments to our forming a personal acquaintance, at least in 
the usual way. General Fremont and myself have never 
yet been formally introduced to each other, and in all 
probability we never shall be hereafter. I certainly had 
no unkindness individually for this gentleman when we 
entered the Senate, nor have I a particle of personal ill- 
will toward him at the present moment. When the pain- 
ful and protracted contest between this gentleman and 
Governor Mason, of New Mexico, was pending, and a 
meeting between th^e individuals upon the field of honor 
was confidently expected very soon to occur, at the earnest 
instance of a very worthy gentleman then in the Senate, 
and who is still surviving, I had ventured to interpose in 
this very delicate affair, with a view of preventing, if prac- 
ticable, those tragical consequences which were so justly 
to be apprehended. I had never had the slightest reason 
to suspect that Colonel Fremont, as he was then called, 
cherished feelings of personal unkindness for myself, 
when, on the last night of the congressional session, the 
following very curious scene occurred. This gentleman 
had within a few days introduced several bills, the pro- 
visions of which involved, as I could not but believe, val- 
uable mineral interests of the government, which bills, I 
was of opinion, should they become laws, would be infal- 
libly productive of great public detriment. I had pre- 
sented a firm and courteous opposition to them, as others 
had done, and they had been, by our joint efforts, defeat- 
ed ; when, coming to my seat, he accosted me politely and 



210 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

invited me to aa interview outside of the Senate, -whicli 
invitation I could not in reason refuse. After we had 
passed through the large central door of the Senate-cham- 
ber, which closed after us, he turned to me and said, "Col- 
onel Benton is very much displeased at your conduct to- 
night." To which I responded, "I regret much to learn 
that such is the fact, as I have been laboring-assiduously 
to conciliate that eminent personage for several years." 
To this he responded, " I do not at all like your conduct 
myself, nor will I allow you to interfere with my Califor- 
nia concerns." I then said, "I do not understand how 
you can have any California concerns proper to become 
a subject of legislative action in the Senate in the consid- 
eration of which I may not legitimately participate. Be- 
sides," I continued, " Colonel, you must know that I in- 
tend in all matters to act with perfect independence in 
the Senate, without the least regard to whether you and 
Colonel Benton are offended or not ;" and subjoined, " I 
opine that you have waked up the ivroiig passenger ^ 
Upon which he exclaimed, "You are no gentleman I" 
On the utterance of this insulting language I struck him. 
He was evidently proceeding, with a sufficient display of 
spirit, to return the blow, when two senators coming out 
of the central door through which we had passed inter- 
fered between us and forcibly threw us apart. In about 
an hour I received a note of very significant import from 
Colonel Fremont, to which I wrote an assenting response. 
Before daylight several senatorial friends interfered in 
the affair, demanded the simultaneous withdrawal of both 
the hostile notes, and insisted that the dispute should be 
altogether dropped. This was mutually agreed to, and 



PEACE BETTER THAN WAR. 211 

I, regarding the altercation as terminated, proceeded the 
next day to my own distant home in the Southwest. In 
about two weeks thereafter I received several letters from 
eminent senatorial friends, informing me that, subsequent 
to my departure from Washington, Colonel Fremont had 
issued a hand-bill charging me with having instigated 
certain newspaper scribblers to ridicule his conduct in 
the transaction described, and denouncing me for this, my 
supposed conduct, in very unmeasured terms. These 
friends likewise advised me to let the matter pass by, as 
they did not consider that I was at all likely to suffer 
detriment from silence ; and, in point of fact, this was the 
course pursued by me. When, several years after, dur- 
ing the presidential contest of 1856, two or three of Col- 
onel Fremont's Eepublican supporters in San Francisco 
called upon me one morning, and invited my attention to 
an editorial article which had just made its appearance 
in an Ohio paper, accusing their candidate of having 
made a violent personal assault upon me in the lobby of 
the Senate-chamber, I did not hesitate to deny the fact, 
and they being of opinion that the circulation of this 
charge would do him injury as a presidential candidate, 
I gave them a written certificate denying the accusation, 
which they published immediatel}^ 

There are some other facts of a different character con- 
nected with the presidential contest of 1856, so far as the 
same had its progress in the State of California, of far su- 
perior interest to the general reader than those which 
have just been narrated. 

All America has Ions: as-o heard of the meritorious and 

o o 

splendid character of whom I have now to record some 



212 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

particulars of a nature to impart to sober reality mucli of 
the brightness and attractiveness of romance. General 
Edward ff. Baker, who was recently an honored member 
of the United States Senate from one of the youngest 
and fairest daughters of this ocean-bound confederacy of 
states, and whose untimely death, in one of the earliest 
battles of our late unhappy civil war, all the admirers of 
genius, and all the sympathizers with true manliness of 
soul, must profoundly lament, was born in England, at a 
period not very remote from the commencement of the 
present century. He came to the United States, whether 
in company with his parents or under the care of some 
casual protector, when yet in tender years, and was domi- 
ciliated in the then rapidly growing State of Illinois, not 
far from the celebrated Ninian Edwards, who lent to his 
unprovided condition the tender care of a liberal patron 
and a sage admonitor. Where he obtained the rudiments 
of a plain English education, which was all he could ever 
boast, I have never been advised ; but the faithful tute- 
lage of Governor Edwards, and the access so liberally 
granted him to the large library of this eminent and learn- 
ed person, left little to be lamented in regard to the want 
of regular academic instruction. Certain it is that at a 
very early age the subject of this notice was deemed qual- 
ified to practice the legal profession, and that in a very 
short time he attained such ascendency at the bar of his 
own immediate neighborhood that no one was supposed 
at all able to compete with him. He became, in due sea- 
son, a representative in Congress, and successively repre- 
sented two distinct congressional districts in the State of 
Illinois. When the Mexican War broke out, though con- 



GENERAL BAKER. 213 

demning it in its commencement as an attack upon a fee- 
ble and neighboring republic, he eagerly enlisted therein 
so soon as he found that its prosecution had been positive- 
ly resolved on by those in power. In the progress of the 
war he gained much eclat as a laborious and efficient of- 
ficer, but, having only a limited opportunity of displaying 
his ability in this line of public service, he established no 
claims to that extraordinary renown which his own gen- 
erous ambition prompted him most warmly to desire. At 
the close of the Mexican War he migrated to California, 
and located in the city of San Francisco, where, during 
the month of February, 1854, 1 first met with him, and 
where we contracted relations of reciprocal kindness and 
respect, which continued, as I have reason to believe, on 
both sides for some time after our personal separation by 
the accidents of war. 

General Baker, when I encountered him first on the dis- 
tant Pacific coast, was, as in a very few days I ascertain- 
ed, universally recognized as altogether the most eloquent 
speaker at the California bar, and, on familiar acquaint- 
ance with him, I discovered that he was very far from 
being merely a brilliant and fanciful rhetorician, for I re- 
peatedly heard him,, both then and afterward, when en- 
gaged in the argument of legal causes of the greatest com- 
plexity and difficulty, and never did I find him at all un- 
equal to the occasion. Whenever a difficult case was to 
be tried even in parts of California most distant from his 
own residence, he was sought for with the greatest eager- 
ness, and oftentimes with a most unusual display of emu- 
lous contention. 

During the last year of my four years' sojourn in Cali- 



214 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

forniathe second organization of the celebrated Vigilance 
Committee occurred, in regard to whose proceedings there 
was at one time, both in California and elsewhere, much 
contrariety of opinion. I might at present be trusted to 
speak of the acts of this anomalous association, and might 
reasonably expect my own impartiality to be confided in 
by all who have any special feeling on this subject, as I 
neither took part in the proceedings of the committee 
while they were in progress, nor essayed in any way to 
counteract them. I shall only say on this occasion, 
though, that I am convinced that I had ample opportu- 
nity for scrutinizing the motives of the principal individ- 
uals who are given credit for setting the committee on 
foot, and I am free to say that I never had reason to ques- 
tion their entire purity and disinterestedness. I am con- 
fident that the general action of the committee was pro- 
ductive of decidedly beneficial effects, though it would 
be rather absurd to question that, in particular instances, 
that action may have been both unjust and oppressive. 
Early in the year 1856, a person called Corah, a French- 
man or Italian by birth, a gambler by occupation, and an 
individual of most debauched habits and degraded char- 
acter, committed one of the most barefaced and wanton 
murders ever perpetrated in a Christian country upon 
General Eichison, the United States marshal of the dis- 
trict in which San Francisco was situated. This flagitious 
act, occurring in a city where crime of every sort was far 
more frequent than agreeable to upright and orderly citi- 
zens, and where the administration of criminal justice had 
for some years been notoriously lax and ineffective, was 
naturally productive of intense and wide-spread excite- 



VIGILANCE COMMITTEE OF SAN FRANCISCO. 215 

ment. There was a general desire manifested, and by 
tokens most unmistakable, to have the alleged culprit 
subjected, as soon as possible, to exemplary punishment. 
It chanced that I personally knew General Baker to have 
been offered a large fee both to prosecute and to defend 
in this case. He appeared eventually on the side of the 
defense, and, after a most intensely interesting trial, the 
j ury being unable to agree, Corah was sent back to pris- 
on. In a few days another appalling homicide was per- 
petrated, and, in this instance, a man who had been once 
a penitentiary convict (Casey by name) had assassinated, 
in cold blood, a most popular newspaper editor, a gentle- 
man of great worth, who had at one time been known as 
an eminently public-spirited and liberal banker. The 
people almost immediately arose in mass, assumed an or- 
ganized character, took possession of the greater part of 
the arms and warlike munitions of the cit}^, broke open 
the public prisons, and put to death several persons who 
were found in confinement, in addition to the two atro- 
cious criminals already referred to. The city was pro- 
claiyned to be in a state of siege, and all municipal au- 
thority was declared suspended. Any ordinary man 
would have quailed before this terrible array. Not so 
General Baker. He immediately advertised a meeting 
of the citizens upon the public Plaza of the city, and an- 
nounced his intention to address them. At the stated 
time and place, a considerable popular assemblage had con- 
vened according to notice. General Baker took upon him- 
self the perilous task of addressing them. I never saw 
him calmer or more collected in my life. At first, those 
who were present listened to his gentle and soothing 



216 SCYLLA AND CHAEYBDIS. 

strains in quiet, and apparently with attention. Present- 
ly the orator began to employ the language of complaint 
and indignation in regard to the recent proceedings of the 
Vigilance Committee. A low moaning sound was in a 
few minutes heard in the very centre of the crowd, which 
soon became a wild and multitudinous roar. Fierce men- 
aces were distinctly uttered in various quarters. After 
repeated efforts to gain attention, the audacious and gifted 
orator, finding it impossible that a calm and undisturbed 
hearing could be secured, retired from the stand. In an 
hour or two he learned from his friends that his own 
life was in danger, and he left the city of San Francisco 
for Sacramento, the capital of the state, where he re- 
mained for several months without active occupation of 
any kind. I chanced to visit Sacramento just as the 
presidential contest was fairly commencing, and General 
Baker came to see me. He told me that he designed en- 
tering into the canvass, but frankly disclosed several 
causes of embarrassment which were at the time giving 
him annoyance. He said that, being a Whig, he should 
be pleased to support Mr. Fillmore, but he could not, as 
2i foreigner horn, he thought, support a presidential candi- 
date nominated by the American party ; that he had been 
contending with the Democratic party all his life, and, 
therefore, he could not decently cast his suffrage for Mr. 
Buchanan ; that he had no special partiality for Greneral 
Fremont, and was by no means an approver of the ex- 
treme Free-soil creed ; but that, upon the whole, having 
resolved not to be idle at such a crisis, he thought he 
should espouse the Eepublican cause, and exert himself 
actively in its support. So indeed he did ; for several 



GENERAL BAKER AS AN ORATOR. 217 

weeks thereafter, in traversing tlae state, I found at va- 
rious points that General Baker had either preceded me, 
was expected to appear at the place which I had already 
reached in a few days, or, as once or twice happened, 
he was actually at the place of holding a public de- 
bate at the same time that I was. He spoke almost 
every day, and to immense crowds, in almost every part 
of the state, and with prodigious effect every where. 
Toward the close of his very brilliant campaign the fame 
of his wondrous achievements reached San Francisco, 
where a large majority of those whose hostility had 
driven him into banishment were ardent supporters of 
Fremont. Immediately such a revulsion in popular feel- 
ing occurred as I presume never took place before, save 
in the memorable case of Cicero, called back to Eome by 
the unanimous voice of the populace only a few months 
after Clodius had persuaded them to drive him into ex- 
ile. The whole Kepublican party in San Francisco con- 
curred in inviting the leading advocate of their cause, 
but whose life six months before would have been deem- 
ed but a just sacrifice to a furious popular resentment, 
to return to their midst, and deliver one of his soul-stir- 
ring harangues in their hearing. He came accordingly, 
and seldom has such an imposing ovation been tender- 
ed to any man. He ascended the stand prepared to be 
occupied by himself, and gave utterance to one of the 
most overwhelming popular harangues that has ever 
been any where listened to. A few months later, he 
was invited to the Territory of Oregon, to take part in. 
the excited popular contest there then in progress. He 
complied with this invitation, went to Oregon, delivered 

K 



218 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

some twenty or thirty speeches, and was almost immedi- 
ately thereafter chosen to represent the new Pacific state 
in the national Senate, where he soon took a prominent 
part in the proceedings of Congress; and then, in a few 
months more, the brilliant orator, the ardent patriot, the 
gallant soldier, disappeared forever from the view of men 
amid the smoke and toil of battle. 



PRESIDENTIAL CONTEST OF 1856. 219 



CHAPTER XII. 

Some farther Notice of the "Irrepressible Conflict" Theory. — Analysis 
of the Condition of Parties at the Time of Mr. Buchanan's Inaugura- 
tion. — Statement of the Election Kesults during the first Year of his 
Administration. — Historic Recital of some important Facts which 
occurred during the Summer of 1857, anterior to Mr. Buchanan's suc- 
cumbing to the Dictation of the Secession Leaders. — Efforts to reani- 
mate his Courage made at that Period, all of which signally failed. — 
Recital of Particulars connected with the Lecompton Struggle in Con- 
gress. — Some Scenes, both amusing and painful, which at that time had 
their progress in Washington. — Remarkable banqueting Scene, in which 
Mr. Seward bore the principal Part. — Last Interview between Mr. Bu- 
chanan and the Author, in which some startling Revelations were made. 

The fancied "irrepressible conflict of antagonistic ele- 
ments imbedded in our complex frame of government," 
if such, a necessary and inevitable conflict ever had an 
existence, must be recognized as having displayed itself 
first to the public view, in a distinct and menacing form, 
about the year 1835, when the first abolition associations 
were formed in England, and in the Northern States of 
the American Union, for the eradication of African Slav- 
ery wlieresoever it had gained footing, and especially in 
the Southern States of the Union, where, wisely or un- 
wisely, our fathers had yielded to it, in all the states at 
least, as no one denied until recently, organic guarantees 
of protection ; which conflict must be supposed to have 
farther developed itself during the eventful thirteen 
years which intervened between 1835 and 1818, when 



220 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

non-intervention became a fundamental principle of the 
National Democratic creed ; which would seem to have 
been held for a few years in a state of feeble and harm- 
less suppression under the firm and sage administration 
of Millard Fillmore ; and to have enjoyed another season 
of temporary and feverish vigor in consequence of the im- 
politic introduction in Congress of the Kansas-Nebraska 
Bill, and the maniacal administration of Mr. Pierce, which 
daringly aimed to consolidate, extend, and perpetuate 
African slavery by incessant agitation, and by the cor- 
rupt distribution of official patronage among the avowed 
champions of free soil in the North, whose opposition it 
was vainly hoped to buy up and terminate. And now 
a second opportunity was presented of suppressing the 
outbreaking lawlessness of sectional faction, both in the 
North and in the South, by returning to the constitution- 
al pathways so plainly marked out by the compromise 
leaders of 1850, and the grand conservative principles of 
mutual forbearance and reciprocal justice embodied in 
the Federal Constitution. Mr. Buchanan had triumphed 
in the presidential election of 1856. The united vote of 
the Democratic and American parties in that election 
constituted a decided majority of the whole popular vote 
of the nation. It was evident that the great body of 
voters who had supported Fillmore in that contest would 
be ready to co-operate heartily with the new administra- 
tion, if that administration should show itself true to the 
principles oi finality and non-intervention upon which Mr. 
Buchanan himself had professed to accept the high ex- 
ecutive station into which he was in a few days to be in- 
ducted. Between the period of his being chosen presi- 



MR. BUCHANAN'S INAUGURATION. 221 

dent and the day of his official inauguration, the public 
mind was filled with intense curiosity as to the course of 
policy which the new president might ultimately adopt. 
There was much speculation afloat also in reference to 
the persons whom he might call around him as members 
of his cabinet. Sound, practical statesmen earnestly 
hoped that he would be more wise in the selection of his 
cabinet advisers than Mr. Pierce had been, and that there 
would be neither sectionalist, nor local demagogue, nor 
political changeling, nor concealed abolitionist, hypocrit- 
ically professing to be a genuine States-right Democrat, 
to be found in close official alliance with the newly-made 
president. A letter appeared about this time in the 
newspapers over the signature of A. G. Brown, of Missis- 
sippi, a gentleman of very extreme views upon the slav- 
ery question, and who had been an ardent advocate of 
disunion in 1851, which described an interview which he 
had just held with Mr. Buchanan at his own residence in 
Pennsylvania; which letter was not a little startling in 
some of its statements, considering Mr. Brown's own po- 
litical antecedents, his known eager desire for the forcible 
extension of slavery into the territories by congressional 
instrumentality, and the interpretation which he was un- 
derstood to have affixed to Mr. Calhoun's political teach- 
ings. This letter concluded with the following statement 
in reference to Mr. Buchanan : " In my judgment, he is as 
worthy of Southern confidence and Southern votes as ever Mr. 
Calhoun vjas^ 

The inauguration scene occurred upon the 4th day of 
March, 1857, and James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, was 
proclaimed President, and John C. Breckenridge Yice- 



222 SCYLLA AND CHAKYBDIS. 

President of tlie United States of America. Mr. Bu- 
chanan's inaugural address, with very slight exceptions, 
was a highly unexceptionable document. It embodied 
sound national views in clear and forcible diction, and 
was admirably received by the country. ^ Scarcely a 
whisper of disapproval or of distrust was any where 
breathed. The Southern slaveholding class, ever more 
conservative in their views and feelings than the noisy 
and shallow demagogues in the two houses of Congress 
and elsewhere, who have for twenty years past put them- 
selves forward as its special and exclusive champions, 
was entirely satisfied with Mr. Buchanan's solemn assur- 
ance that no unconstitutional infraction of their rights 
would receive his sanction. The Free-soil faction, so re- 
cently and so signally defeated, seemed well-nigh crushed 
out of existence, and its leaders appeared to be every 
where meditating its formal disbandment. The Ameri- 
can party were prepared enthusiastically to rally to the 
support of an administration which stood pledged to pur- 
sue a course of policy which they did not doubt would 
renew that delightful era of repose and general fraternal 
feeling in which they had so much rejoiced while Mr. 
Fillmore had occupied the presidential chair. The fierce 
sectional leaders of the South saw plainly that this was 
not altogether a favorable moment to originate the disor- 
ganizing movements which some of them had long medi- 
tated, and confidently hoped in the end, either by adroit 
persuasion or by thundering menaces of opposition, or by 
both of these combined, they might be yet able to mould 
Mr. Buchanan to their purposes, whom they took care to 
remind very early that he had owed his election to the 



MR. BUCHANAN AS A NON-INTERVENTIONIST. 223 

presidency mainly to their management and support. 
The general condition of popular feeling in the country, 
as well as the relative state of political parties, was very 
soon made manifest in certain important state elections 
which took place during the very year in which Mr. Bu- 
chanan's administration began. These election results 
are well worthy of attention, as showing that the Ameri- 
can people were really devoted to the principles of true 
constitutional conservatism, and only desired the govern- 
ment at Washington to be administered in the concilia- 
tory and fraternal spirit so solemnly- inculcated by the 
wise and patriotic statesmen of the Washington era. 
Fremont and Dayton had obtained in the whole North, 
in the autumn of 1856, 1,34:1,812 votes. The elections 
which took place in 1859 show a falling off in the aggre- 
gate strength of the Eepublican party of nearly 200,000 
votes. The Eepublican majority was greatly diminished 
in every New England state. In the State of Connecti- 
cut especially, the majority of that party was reduced 
from 7715 votes to 546. In Ohio, Governor Chase, whose 
local popularity was known to be very great, was re-elect- 
ed only by the slender majority of 1481 votes, though the 
Eepublicans had carried the state in the immediately pre- 
ceding year by a majority of 16,623. In Iowa, where the 
Eepublicans had in 1856 carried the state by a majority 
of 7784 votes. Governor Lowe, the popular Eepublican 
candidate for governor, could only command the meagre 
majority of 2151. In Wisconsin, which had been carried 
by the Eepublicans in 1856 by tjie sweeping majority of 
13,247 votes, their respectable gubernational candidate 
barely evaded defeat, his majority being 118 only. In 



224 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

the great State of JSTew York a complete civic revolution 
was effected such as the history of the republic has rarely 
exhibited. In this vast and enlightened commonwealth, 
where the spirit of the people has been ever conservative, 
and among whom an intense and abiding love of the 
Federal Union has been always a distinguishing charac- 
teristic, Fremont's plurality of 80,000 was changed to a 
Democratic majority of 18,000. "It appeared," says Mr. 
Greeley, in his "American Conflict," "in this (New York), 
as in the other free states, that the decline or dissolution 
of the American or Fillmore party inured mainly to the 
benefit of the triumphant Democracy, though Pennsyl- 
vania, and possibly Rhode Island, were exceptions. To 
swell the resistless tide, Minnesota and Oregon, both in 
the extreme north, each framed a state Constitution this 
year, and took position in line with the dominant party, 
Minnesota by a small, Oregon by an overwhelming ma- 
jority — the two swelling, by four senators and four repre- 
sentatives, the already invincible strength of the Democ- 
racy." One of the most remarkable elections of this pe- 
riod remains yet to be specified. California, which had 
been carried by a majority of some 5000 votes by the 
American party (where, as I chance personally to know, 
it was a Union Reform party, and nothing more nor less), 
in the election of governor and other officers, in the year 
1855, was carried for the Democratic party, just two years 
thereafter, by a plurality of more than thirty thousand 
votes. In the summer of 1857, Mr. Buchanan, in the high 
national attitude which he occupied, could look abroad 
over the land and find himself sustained by greatly more 
than two thirds of the whole body of the American vot- 



FAITHLESSNESS OF MR. BUCHANAN. 225 

ing population. It is melancholy to reflect how a shame- 
less violation of the pledges with which this individual 
came into office, a gross and almost unprecedented want 
of statesmanship, and a timid and disgraceful subservi- 
ency to certain daring and dogmatizing sectional leaders 
of the South, in less than six months from this moment 
of palmy prosperity for the whole republic, as well as for 
the administration of Mr. Buchanan and the now thorough- 
ly blended Democratic and American parties, had com- 
pletely reversed this gratifying picture. The leaders just 
spoken of managed in a few months thereafter to inveigle 
this most unfortunate man in such a predicament of folly 
and self-contradiction before the country as had never 
been known before in American annals, and brought such 
a crushing weight of odium upon the Northern portion 
of the Democratic party, in connection with the fraud.- 
conceived and knavery-generated Lecompton Constitution, 
as almost literally sunk that party into non-existence, 
and paved the way for the grand and fatal misarrange- 
ment of 1860, whereby the strength of the Democratic 
party was so causelessly divided, a Kepublican president 
elected by a plurality of popular votes, and a scheme of 
disunion, long before secretly prepared, in due season 
carried into effect, civil war generated, and innumerable 
mischiefs besides turned loose to prey upon the land, 
the blasting and wide-spread consequences of which, it is 
to be greatly feared, our children and our children's chil- 
dren may be compelled to experience and to deplore. 
Well may the sagacious author of the "American Con- 
flict," while speaking of the extraordinary conduct of 

K2 



226 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

Mr. Buchanan at this crisis, with mocking exultation, use 
the following emphatic language :* 

"The opposition was utterly powerless against this 
surge; but what they dared hardly undertake, Mr. Bu- 
chanan was able to effect. By his utterly indefensible at- 
tempt to enforce the Lecompton Constitution upon Kan- 
sas, in glaring contradiction to his smooth and voluble 
professions regarding ' popular sovereignty,' ' the will of 
the majority,' etc., etc., he enabled the Kepublicans in 
1868 to hold, by majorities almost uniformly increased, 
all the states they had carried the preceding year, and 
reverse the last year's majority against them in New 
York; carry Pennsylvania, for the first time, by over 
26,000 majority, triumph even in New Jersey under an 
equivocal organization,, bring over Minnesota by a close 
vote, and swell their majority in Ohio to fully 20,000. 
They were beaten in Indiana, on the state ticket, by a 
very slender majority, but carried seven of the eleven 
representatives in Congress, besides helping elect an anti- 
Lecompton Democrat in another district ; while Michigan, 
Iowa, and Wisconsin chose Eepublican tickets — as of late 
had been usual with them— by respectable majorities, 
and the last named by one increased to nearly 6,000." 

In order to ascertain clearly what was the precise char- 
acter of the admonitory suggestions made to Mr. Buchan- 
an by the popular elections that occurred in the early 
part of the year 1857, and which he so strangely disre- 
garded in the manner already specified, it will be prop- 
er to glance for a moment to what was going on in 
Kansas and elsewhere at that period. " I contemplate en- 
tering into no tedious specification of particulars touch- 



KANSAS TERRITORY. 227 

ing the matters alluded to, and shall confine my observa- 
tions to leading and important FACTS. 

The civil disturbances in Kansas still continued. The 
pro-slavery champions in that territory and the anti- 
slavery propagandists were yet fiercely controverting 
with ^ach other in that remote region, and each of the 
contending factions which were there represented was 
aiming to 

" Prove its doctrine orthodox 
By apostolic blows and knocks." 

Sharp revolvers, and other weapons of carnal warfare, 
were still being freely used on both sides, and the whole 
territory was fast becoming, under the unpardonable min- 
istration of the government, an earthly Pandemonium. 
This precious legacy of anarchy and "confusion worse 
confounded" was meekly handed over by the retiring 
Pierce, and his now home-returning cabinet officials, to Mr. 
Buchanan, who had awakened such extraordinary hopes 
on all sides that, under his judicious direction, order 
would be speedily restored in Kansas, the dignity of the 
laws maintained, and the honor of the republic vindica- 
ted. There was plainly but one wise and honest course 
to pursue, and that was evidently, too, the only course 
that in the least degree promised to be successful It 
was clear that there were enough people in Kansas, and 
that there was enough of intelligence and moral worth 
also, to justify the territory being immediately organized 
into a state. If these people should be allowed to form 
a state Constitution without any unauthorized foreign 
intervention, and in the absence of fraud and violence of 
any kind, it seemed certain that quiet would soon be re- 



228 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

stored, a solid, prosperous commonwealtli be formed, and 
the republic be itself freed from any farther disquietude 
in regard to its concerns. Honesty and plain dealing on 
the part of the government in Washington, with a prop- 
er display of firmness and respect for his avowed princi- 
ples on the part of Mr. Buchanan, were now the i-hings 
most demanded. Governor Geary, the third or fourth 
of the territorial governors who had been dispatched 
from Washington City to this far-off region, had just re- 
signed in a very abrupt manner, and retired in disgust 
from the territory. It was necessary to lose no time in 
appointing his successor. Mr. Buchanan at once turned 
his eyes toward two of the most suitable men, in all re- 
spects, that the country contained, for the ofl&ce of gov- 
ernor and secretary of state of the new territory, Eobert 
J. Walker and Frederick P. Stanton. Mr. Walker is un- 
derstood to have accepted the place now tendered to him 
with great reluctance, and, in point of fact, he sternly re- 
fused to take upon himself the painful responsibilities 
which were now courting his assumption, unless he could 
have a solemn assurance beforehand that he would be 
faithfully sustained by the government in the efforts 
which he contemplated making to secure to the people 
among whom he was going all the well-known rights 
and immunities of American citizens, and especially their 
rights, as a sovereign community, to dispose of the moot- 
ed question of slavery precisely as they might judge 
most wise and proper. These assurances having been re- 
ceived, Mr. Walker and Mr. Stanton proceeded at once to 
the Territory of Kansas, and entered upon the field of 
duty assigned them. I have already said that I should 



GOVERNOR WALKER AND SECRETARY STANTON. 229 

not undertake to go into detail upon this oft-discussed 
theme. I may be allowed here to observe, though, that 
the whole conduct of Governor Walker and Secretary 
Stanton was in full accordance with the instructions 
which Mr. Buchanan had given to them when they de- 
parted from Washington; that their official acts were 
such as did them the highest honor ; that both of them 
faithfully struggled to secure to the unhappy people of 
Kansas all the benefits which Mr. Buchanan was most sa- 
credly pledged to guarantee to them ; and that, had Mr. 
Buchanan, with true fidelity and manliness, performed 
his duty as first magistrate of the republic, Kansas would 
have been inevitably admitted into the Union at the very 
next session of Congress, and the conduct of the new ad- 
ministration would have been in the end approved by 
nine tenths of the whole American people. But such, I 
regret to say, was not by any means the conduct of Mr. 
Buchanan at this painful conjuncture in his country's af- 
fairs, and, by pursuing a course precisely the opposite of 
this, he has made himself most criminally responsible for 
a large proportion of the evils which have since befallen 
the republic. 

I left the State of California in the summer of 1857, 
and arrived in the city of New York only a day or two 
antecedent to the assemblage of a large popular meeting, 
which was addressed by several very prominent public 
men, in support of Mr. Buchanan's administration, and 
especially in vindication of the truly national policy 
which he was known to have adopted for the settlement 
of the Kansas difficulties. Having been invited, also, to 
harangue the multitude, I did so in a very brief manner, 



230 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

giving some account of the political victory which had 
been then recently achieved in the State of California, 
and of the utter prostration there of the Eepublican fac- 
tion by the coalesced forces of the Democratic and Amer- 
ican parties, and urging my brother Americans of New 
York, so far as I judged it allowable for a stranger to do 
so, to yield a hearty support to Mr. Buchanan's adminis- 
tration, then, as I thought, honestly exerting itself to do 
all in its power toward the general pacification of the 
country. 

Just about this time certain leading Southern politi- 
cians in Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina com- 
menced a course of open and unmeasured denunciation 
of Mr. Buchanan on account of his having sent Covernor 
Walker to Kansas, and on account of the acts of this lat- 
ter personage as governor of the territory, charging the 
President with the basest ingratitude to the Southern 
States and people, to whose support they asserted him to 
have chiefly owed his elevation, and menacing him, in- ad- 
dition, with such opposition in Congress and elsewhere as 
would speedily subject him to punishment for the gross 
infidelity which they accused him of having exhibited 
toward his political benefactors. Fearing very seriously 
the effect of these movements upon Mr. Buchanan, who 
I knew to be morbidly sensitive to public reproach, and 
anxious beyond the wise sedateness of true statesman- 
ship to please every body, I resolved, to visit Washing- 
ton without delay, hoping to find out there whether there 
was any likelihood of the administration's recoiling from 
the attitude which it then occupied. On arriving in that 
city, where I remained only a single day, I learned from 



MR. BUCHANAN'S PERTUEBATION. 231 

the lips of Mr. Thompson, then Secretary of the Interior, 
that though Mr. Buchanan had been much galled and 
mortified by the course pursued toward him in the South- 
ern States, he was resolved firmly to stand by Governor 
Walker and non-intervention in Kansas, whatever might 
be the consequences of his doing so to himself personal- 
ly, or to the future prosperity of his administration. Mr. 
Thompson having expressed in that interview strong fears 
that in the Southwest, particularly in Mississippi and the 
adjoining states. Senators Davis and Brown, with others, 
might succeed, if not promptly counteracted, in mislead- 
ing their fellow-citizens in regard to the Kansas imhroglio^ 
I volunteered to go in that direction myself, for the pur- 
*pose of employing such influence as might still remain 
to me, after a four years' absence, in furthering a cause 
which I had so much at heart. I set out accordingly, 
and journeyed at once to the city of Memphis, where, 
being invited to address my fellow-citizens, I attended a 
large popular assemblage convoked under the auspices 
of the most influential public persons in that vicinage, 
over which the eminently patriotic ex-Governor Jones 
presided, and, in a harangue of several hours' duration, 
called the attention of those present to the then existing 
condition of public affairs, and labored to show them that 
it was the true policy of the South, as of the whole coun- 
try besides, to yield to Mr. Buchanan the most zealous 
support at that perilous conjuncture. The address which 
I delivered on this occasion, with the evidences of popu- 
lar approval which the advice embodied therein had elic- 
ited, in manner and form as the same were set forth in 
the newspapers of the vicinage, I took occasion to trans- 



282 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

mit directly to "Washington for Mr. Buchanan's encour- 
agement, after which I proceeded at once to the city of 
Jackson, in Mississippi, where the Legislature of that 
state was then in session. On arriving at this place, and 
learning that the two Mississippi senators, Messrs. Davis 
and Brown, had both addressed a large meeting at the 
Capitol on the evening before my arrival, when each of 
these gentlemen had denounced Mr. Buchanan's Kansas 
policy in unmeasured terms, I accepted an invitation ten- 
dered to me to speak to a similar assemblage at the same 
place on the very evening ensuing my arrival ; having 
done which, I again sent^to Dr. William M. Gwin, then in 
Washington City, to be handed over to Mr. Buchanan, 
the newspapers of Jackson, containing an account of 
these proceedings. It was unfortunately of no avail that 
these efforts to reassure Mr. Buchanan were essayed by 
myself and others; he had already become _pa?22c-5/ncZ:- 
en ; the bowlings of the bull-dog of secession had fairly 
frightened him out of his wits, and he resolved to yield, 
without farther resistance, to the decrial and villification 
to which he had been so thunderingly subjected. In 
point of fact, a week or two thereafter, the Hon. Clancy 
Jones, of Pennsylvania, a well-known and confidential 
friend of Mr. Buchanan, published in the newspapers a 
letter, in which the first foreshadowing appeared of Mr. 
Buchanan's determination completely to revolutionize his 
course in the Kansas affair. 

Having become, in common with thousands of others, 
deeply alarmed at the condition of public affairs, I visited 
Washington City early in the session of Congress next 
ensuing, not without some faint hope, I confess, that even 



FEARFUL EXCITEMENT IN CONGRESS. 233 

my presence and efforts at tlie capital of the republic 
would not be altogether useless. I there encountered 
Mr. Buchanan's message recommending the admission of 
Kansas into the Union under the infamous Lecompton 
Constitution^ and found a state of political excitement such 
as it was indeed most painful to behold. I was quite 
sensible that, as a mere private citizen, I could do but lit- 
tle to avert the rising storm, but I did, notwithstanding, 
all that I was capable of doing for that purpose. 

Let us now look for a moment, and for a moment only, 
to the occurrences which had recently had their progress 
in Kansas. Two opposing Conventions had been held 
there. The Pro -slavery Convention had assembled at 
Lecompton on the first Monday of September. A pro- 
slavery Constitution was speedily framed. This Consti- 
tution was promulgated, and the people of Kansas were 
invited to vote, in regard to its ratification, in a mode 
which, I venture to say, was at the time altogether un- 
precedented, and, indeed, was consummately disgraceful. 
The formula prescribed by the Convention required that 
every citizen desiring to participate in the act of ratifica- 
tion should either vote "for the Constitution with slav- 
ery," or "for the Constitution without slavery." None 
could vote who would not submit to going through this 
absurd and farcical process. The popular vote in this 
election was soon announced as 6266 votes " for the Con- 
stitution ivith slavery," and 567 only " for the Constitu- 
tion without slavery." So what was called a Constitution 
was in this form ratified by less than 7000 votes. The 
provisions of this extraordinary instrument prohibited 
any interference " with the rights of property in slaves" 



234 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

for the present, and likewise prohibited any amendment 
of its own clauses until the year 1864. The subject is 
far too disgusting to be farther expatiated on at this mo- 
ment. A more corrupt and fraudulent transaction had 
never taken place in Christendom than the pretended 
adoption and ratification of this pseudo-Constitution ; a 
more heartless and unprecedented attempt to enslave more 
than ten thousand free American citizens could not pos- 
sibly be imagined. And yet the abominable frauds 
which no one could deny had been perpetrated in Kan- 
sas, had been done in the name of the Southern States and 
people, whose escutcheon had, until this melancholy con- 
juncture, been ever kept pure and unstained, and in the 
name of the Democratic party also, the members of which 
were expected to stand up in their places in the halls of 
the national Legislature, and proclaim that honester and 
more legitimate proceedings had never been known to 
occur in any territory seeking to frame a state Constitu- 
tion preparatory to entering the Federal Union, and that 
no man had better deserved the thanks and commenda- 
tion of his countrymen than James Buchanan, who had 
so nobly, as it was said, risked his darling popularity in 
this wise and heroic effort to serve that country which 
he loved so well, and to maintain those sacred institutions 
of freedom which he professed to hold in such profound 
reverence ! 

The death-hloio to slavery had now heen struck hy its oivn 
professed friends^ and the Northern members of the Dem- 
ocratic party in Congress, upon whose brawny shoulders 
this intolerable burden had been imposed, were expected 
to hold themselves erect notwithstanding, and to go back 



CHARACTERISTIC ANECDOTE. 235 

to their own homes in a month or two arduously to bat- 
tle with the fierce foes whom they had now armed for 
their own destruction, and, if possible, uphold that firm 
wall of defense against abolition hostility which the North- 
ern Democracy had ever, up to that unfortunate moment, 
constituted. 

After Mr. Buchanan had sent into Congress two sev- 
eral messages earnestly recommending to that body to 
ratify the Lecompton sioindle^ he began to grow very rest- 
less and uneasy, and I conversed with more than a dozen 
members of Congress, who informed me that they had 
just come from the White House, where the anxious 
President had urged them, in language almost of impre- 
cation, for God's sake, not to forsake him and the true 
Democratic cause at this crisis. I heard from the lips of 
Mr. Toombs, about this period, a rather amusing anec- 
dote, alike illustrative of the uneasiness of Mr. Buchanan 
as to the fate of his pet scheme in Congress, and his in- 
genuity in devising new expedients for the strengthening 
of his political position. Mr. Toombs related that a few 
days before he had been at the presidential mansion, 
when the conversation turning upon the troubles then 
existing in Congress, Mr. Buchanan said: "Mr. Toombs, 
when I was a member of Congress some years ago, when- 
ever the Democratic party was hard pressed, they always 
went into caucus^ where it was found quite easy to recon- 
cile discordances, and secure a union of party energies. 
Why do you not call a Democratic caucus now in Con- 
gress ? I am sure it would be attended with exceedingly 
beneficial effects." " Oh," responded the ever-facetious 
and ready Toombs, " Mr. President, you have forgotten 



236 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

my political history a little ; when I came into Congress 
as a senator, a few years ago, I did so as a Union Whig. 
I could not, therefore, you know, with any show of de- 
cent consistency, go into a Democratic caucus until my 
present senatorial term shall have expired. Wait pa- 
tiently, I pray you, Mr. President, a few weeks ; my pres- 
ent senatorial term will expire on the coming 4th of 
March, and, having been recently elected to a second 
term, as a Democrat^ whenever that shall commence its 
course, I shall be prepared for all the duties of my new 
position, and I promise you to be as good a caucus Dem- 
ocrat as ever you heard of" 

During my stay in Washington City, while the Kan- 
sas Bill was yet the subject of contention, I received one 
day a very neat card inviting me to dine with a select 
party of gentlemen at a well-known restaurateur in that 
city. Of course, I did not refuse the kindly summons, 
and proceeded at the time appointed to the place sjDeci- 
fied. Before I had arrived there, some special informa- 
tion was communicated to me which I will now impart. 
Greneral ISTelson, the personage who figured so promi- 
nently in Kentucky and Tennessee during the late war, 
and who was killed so unhappily in private combat at 
Louisville, had been on his way to the Capitol that morn- 
ing, and had accidentally encountered a well-dressed 
Englishman, of rather eccentric appearance and manners, 
who inquired, in a sort of Cochneyish style, as was de- 
scribed to me, for the room of the Supreme Court of the 
United States. After supplying the desired information, 
a miscellaneous conversation sprang up between the gen- 
eral and this supposed Cockney acquaintance. He de- 



CONVIVIAL BANQUET. 237 

termined to attend him to the Supreme Court room, that 
he might see more of him.. While there, it struck him 
that a very funny banqueting scene might be gotten up, 
if he should draw up a card of invitation to the aforesaid 
son of the "fast-anchored isle," asking him, in the name 
of several distinguished members of Congress easy to be 
obtained, to accept that very afternoon of a social repast, 
to be given in honor of Queen Victoria and the British 
people, at the restaurateur already referred to. The m- 
vitation had been very courteously accepted ; and when 
I arrived at the designated place of social rendezvous^ I 
found as gay and splendid a company assembled as it has 
been my lot at any time to behold. The English guest 
was occupying the seat of honor, and on different sides 
of him, and opposite to him, were seated the following 
gentlemen, with others whose names I have really now 
forgotten : the Yice-President of the United States, Mr. 
Breckenridge ; William H. Seward, of New York ; Col- 
onel Orr, the then Speaker of the House of Kepresenta- 
tives, since a distinguished Confederate military officer, 
and a still more distinguished Confederate senator in 
Eichmond ; Hon. Mr. Campbell, of Ohio ; the celebra- 
ted Humphrey Marshall, of Kentucky; Albert Pike, 
the erudite lawyer, the brilliant colloquialist, and late 
prominent military officer in the Confederate service of 
Arkansas; General Nelson himself, and the writer of 
this notice. Dinner had already commenced when I 
reached the arena of action, and the first glass of wine 
was about to be drunk. A sentiment preceded it, which, 
being in honor of her gracious majesty Queen Yictoria, 
called our English friend to his feet, when, without the 



238 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

least embarrassment, and in as easy, dignified, and grace- 
ful a manner as either Lord Palmerston or Lord Ches- 
terfield, when these polished worthies were alive, could 
have exhibited, he poured forth an impromptu response, 
which was, in every respect, a perfect masterpiece of its 
kind. The whole company was manifestly thrown abach 
for a time, the oratorical exhibition had been so unei:pect- 
ed, and alike imposing and appropriate. After a while 
the wine commenced once more circulating, and glass aft- 
er glass was drunk with hearty good-will ; while choice 
anecdote, brilliant repartee, and songs both merry and 
pathetic, served to enliven the occasion. Just as the 
company was rising from the table, Mr. Seward, who had 
already contributed at least his share to the entertain- 
ment, rose, and, with more than usual gravity, asked to 
be permitted to offer a sentiment, to which all the com- 
pany assenting in a genuine convivial manner, he ad- 
dressed the company pretty much as follows : 

" Gentlemen, it has been my fortune to occupy a seat 
in Congress, as you all very well know, for some years, 
during which period I have made one of many genial 
meetings like the present. I lament to say, gentlemen, 
that it has uniformly happened heretofore on such occa- 
sions that the concord and agreeable hilarity of the din- 
ner scene have been more or less marred by the unhappy 
introduction of irritating sectional topics. To-day noth- 
ing of the sort has occurred, a circumstance to me ex- 
ceedingly gratifying. I now give you, gentlemen, the 
following sentiment : May many such pleasant banquets as 
the present hereafter occur among us^ and may none of them 
he interrupted or rendered less agreeable by the introduction 
-of section a I top ics. ' ' 



MR. SEWARD AND MR. BUCHANAN. 239 

After this sentimentj or one in substance resembling 
it, had been duly honored, the company dispersed, in ab- 
solute good-humor with themselves and all the world. 
The very next day (being Sunday) I wandered down to 
the Kev. Mr. Pine's church, where, on entering, I beheld 
Mr. Seward again, and for the last time. He saw me en- 
ter, and, discovering that I had no pew at my command, 
he courteously stepped down the main aisle and asked me 
to take part of his own pew, which I did, and when the 
services of the day were over, took my leave of him, and 
walked toward my own lodgings on Pennsylvania Ave- 
nue. On the way I met President Buchanan. He ac- 
costed me kindly, inquired after my health, and told me 
he was just returning to the presidential mansion from 
the dwelling of Senator Bright, whither he had attended 
his charming daughter from church. Mr. Buchanan re- 
buked me kindly for not having visited him during my 
sojourn in Washington, and seemed to be somewhat in- 
clined to converse for a moment upon the exciting topics 
of the day. The weather was far too cold for an extend- 
ed conversation on the open street ; so, after chatting with 
him for a minute or two, I said, " Mr. President, I shall 
be off to the Southwest to-morrow, and I wish I could 
return to my own home without carrying with me feel- 
ings of great nneasiness in regard to the condition of the 
country." I declared to him, in explicit but kindly lan- 
guage, my views as to the consequences likely to arise 
from the unfortunate Lecompton experiment^ and closed 
by saying to him, " Mr. President, I know more of the 
schemes of the Southern secession leaders than you do. 
You have' yielded much to them during the present ses- 



240 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

sion, and I fear that events have occurred, and are occur- 
ring, which will break down the strength of the Demo- 
cratic party, increase that of the Eepublican party pro- 
portionately, secure the election of a Eepublican presi- 
dent in 1860, and then, I ivarn you solemnly to look out for 
a secession movement to take place lohich luill give the coun- 
try and yourself great trouble. I did not feel willing to 
leave Washington without uttering in your hearing these 
premonitory words." He responded, evidently with some 
embarrassment, pretty much as follows : 

"Let me say to you, sir, in frankness, that if such dan- 
gers should arise as those to which you refer, I shall 
know how to do my duty. In 1852 I sought the presi- 
dential nomination at the hands of the Democratic party, 
and I did not obtain it. In 1856 the presidential nomi- 
nation sought me; I did not make any effort to procure 
it. My attitude, therefore, is a very mdependent one; 
and if any body of men any where shall attempt to sub- 
vert the government, whose executive chief I am, I feel 
confident that I shall know how to deal with them, and 
the whole republic will find me not unfaithful to the 
great trust with which I have been invested." I replied, 
"I doubt not the goodness of your intentions; I trust 
that you will prove in all respects equal to the perilous 
conjuncture which I am sure is not far distant, but I fear 
much that you are confiding in the friendship and integ- 
rity of some who will fail you when the moment of dan- 
ger shall arrive." So speaking, I took him by the hand 
for the last time. 

It is certain that Northern and Southern members of 
Congress were made fully aware of all the 'dangerous 



DINNER AT GENERAL CASS'S HOUSE. 241 

consequences likely to arise from this fearful Lecompton 
movement. The certainty that the Northern Democracy 
would be almost virtually disbanded if this noxious 
measure should be generally supported by them, and 
that thus the republic would almost inevitably fall into 
the hands of the Free-soil party in 1860, was presented 
to them, not only in forcible and eloquent speeches in 
Congress, but in numerous conversational scenes, some 
of which I yet vividly remember. One of these I will 
here describe. 

I had the honor to be invited to dine one day at the 
hospitable mansion of (ieneral Cass. A large company 
assembled at the table, among whom I well recollect 
Senator Evans, of South Carolina, Senator Bigler, of 
Pennsylvania, Senator Wilson, of Massachusetts, Glancy 
Jones, of Pennsylvania, and others. It was a mixed 
company, as might have been expected, composed alike 
of Northern and of Southern members of Congress. It 
chanced that Glancy Jones was seated near me on one 
side, and a well-known representative from Alabama on 
the other. The Kansas question presently fell under dis- 
cussion, in a suppressed tone, between the member from 
Alabama, Mr. Jones, and myself. When we had run 
over the usual topics, I turned to Mr, Jones and said, 
"Now, sir, I desire to ask you a question or two, which 
I am sure you will answer frankly. If the Lecompton 
Bill shall be passed through Congress hy Democratic votes, 
will not its passage be fatal to the Northern portion of 
the party, and secure success to the Eepublicans in the 
coming elections?" To this he answered "that he held 
this result to be certain ; that it would be especially the 

L 



242 SOYLLA AND CHAEYBDIS. 

case in Pennsylvania, where it was not probable that a 
single Democratic representative would be returned to the 
next Congress ; that he himself might possibly be elected, 
but, if so, it would be by the sMji of his teethy Then I 
asked, "How is the South to be benefited by the adop- 
tion of a measure flagrantly unjust in itself, and violative 
of all the known principles of freedom, beneath which 
her friends and supporiers in the North are to be broken 
down ?" He answered that he could not but think that 
the South and the country would alike be benefited if 
the scheme of passing the obnoxious measure should be 
relinquished, in which event he held it to-be certain that 
the Democratic party, which had been so signally suc- 
cessful in recent elections, would be able to sweep the 
whole North in 1860, and thus secure the slavehold- 
ing interests of the South from abolition assailment." 
"Then," said I, " my dear sir, if such be your views, why 
do you not enforce them on Mr. Buchanan?" "Be- 
cause," said he, "I could not do so without giving him 
serious offense." After dinner, I talked for a few min- 
utes with Senator Bigler, of the same state, whose antici- 
pations as to the probable fate of the Democratic party 
of the North under this poisoned Lecompton chalice 
seemed to be most gloomy. 

The whole country remembers how nobly Mr. Douglas 
battled in Congress against this abominable measure; how 
much higher intellectual powers he displayed than he 
had ever before exhibited ; with what cruel malevolence 
he was assaulted in debate by senators from the South, 
for the conciliation of whom, in the Kansas-Nebraska 
struggle, he had sacrificed so much of his well-earned 



FIERCE DEBATES IN CONGRESS. 243 

Northern popularity, only now to become the victim of 
a foul and malign conspiracy^ organized specially for his 
destruction, by individuals anxious above all things to 
enfeeble him for the presidential struggle of 1860. 

The triumph of Mr. Douglas over his numerous adver- 
saries was complete, as all who listened to the stormy de- 
bates which then occurred, or who have read them in the 
Congressional Globe since, will have no hesitation in ad- 
mitting. Mr. Crittenden and Mr. Bell, from the South, 
spoke with great power and effect also ; but these gentle- 
men did not come to the rescue in the contest quite early 
enough to achieve as much as they might have attained 
had they spoken in the beginning of the session, as many 
of their admiring friends, including myself, urged them 
both to do. It is within my own private knowledge, 
that General Houston, of Texas, had prepared some ex- 
cellent and manly resolutions, declarative of his views in 
opposition to the Lecompton fraud, and had drawn up 
the heads of a speech which he intended to deliver in 
support thereof, when the instructions from the Legisla- 
ture of Texas reached him, and paralyzed his energies for 
the session. 

The subsequent proceedings in Congress are yet fresh 
in the memories of us all — the transformation of the Le- 
compton Bill, which had pretty well done its work of 
mischief already, into what was afterward known as the 
English Bill ; the passage of this latter, in part by South- 
ern votes, with a clause submitting the question of the 
Lecompton Constitution anew, on certain terms and con- 
ditions, to the people of Kansas, followed by a scene of 
public rejoicing at the White House over what appeared 



244 SCYLLA AND CHAKYBDIS. 

to be deemed by those assembled as a magnificent South- 
ern victory J wben, in trutb, it only opened to tbe people 
of Kansas an opportunity of voting down themselves the 
Constitution which, in an evil hour, an unpaternal presi- 
dent and his abettors had essayed to force upon them. 

And now the conflict^ so easy to be repressed^ if a wise 
and honest statemanship had been put in exercise, was 
renewed under auspices eminently perilous to the coun- 
try. Can any sober and unprejudiced mind, on consid- 
ering these details, agree still with Mr. Seward in that 
noted declaration of his which has been so often referred 
to in these volumes, and which will now be given in a 
somewhat fuller manner ? These are his words : 

"These antagonistic systems are continually coming 
into closer contact, and collision results. 

"Shall I tell you what this collision means? They 
who think it is accidental, unnecessary, the work of in- 
terested or fanatical agitators, and therefore ephemeral, 
mistake the case altogether. It is an irrepressible cojiflict 
between opposing and enduring forces^ and it means that 
the United States must and will, sooner or later, become 
either entirely a slaveholding nation or entirely a free-la- 
bor nation. Either the cotton and rice fields of South 
Carolina, and the sugar plantations of Louisiana, will ul- 
timately be tilled by free labor, and Charleston and New 
Orleans become marts for legitimate merchandise alone, 
or else the rye-fields and wheat-fields of Massachusetts 
and New York must again be surrendered by their far- 
mers to slave culture and to the production of slaves, and 
Boston and New York become once more markets for 
trade in the bodies and souls of men. It is the failure to 



IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT AGAIN. 245 

apprehend this great truth that induces so many unsuc- 
cessful attempts at final compromise between the slave 
and free states ; and it is the existence of this great fact 
that renders all such pretended compromises, when made, 
vain and ephemeral." 



24:6 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Conspiracy of certain Senators to defeat the " Little Giant of the West" 
in his supposed presidential Aspirations. — Signal Triumph of this Gen- 
tleman as a Debater over all Opposition. — Opening of the senatorial 
Contest between Mr. Douglas and Mr. Lincoln, of Illinois. — Extraordi- 
nary Efforts of Mr. Buchanan and other Individuals of the Democratic 
Party to effect Mr. Douglas's Defeat and secure the Election of his Op- 
ponent. — Eventual Triumph of Mr. Douglas, who returns to the Senate 
to undergo Ostracism at the Hands of senatorial Democrats in Caucus 
under the direction of Mr. Buchanan. — Deep Injury done to the South- 
ern Cause by the unjust Course pursued toward My. Douglas, which 
caused many of this Gentleman's political Supporters in the North to 
grow lukewarm in the support of Southern Rights. — Special Causes 
which now operated to produce sectional Excitement. — Indecent and 
ruffianly Assault upon Mr. Sumner. — Dred Scott Decision. — The South 
indiscreetly exultant over it, and the North indignant. — Attempt by 
certain Persons in the South to bring about the reopening of the Afri- 
can Slave-trade. — Important judicial Contest in Ohio touching the va- 
lidity of the Fugitive Slave Law. — Ossawatomie Bi'own upon a Ram- 
page in the Bosom of Virginia as a radical, political, and moral Re- 
former, ready to shed Oceans of Blood in defense of universal Free- 
dom. — Interesting Debate in the United States Senate on this Subject. 
— Impolitic Execution of Brown, by which he was unnecessarily made 
a Martyr. 

The excited struggle in Congress was now over. All 
impartial men acknowledged that " the Little Giant of 
the "West," as he was now popularly entitled, had pros- 
trated all who had opposed the great eternal truths which 
he had labored to establish in the fierce and obstinately 
contested battles of principle which had been going on in 



TRIUMPH OF TRUTH. 247 

the Senate. All who had presumed to measure strength 
with him in this body had been covered with disgrace, 
and Mr. Buchanan, who, it was well known, had now con- 
ceived a hatred for this fearless champion of intervention 
and popular sovereignty, proportionate to the humiha- 
ting consciousness which he could not but feel of hctffled 
management and counteracted trichery^ prepared, as a solace 
for his wounded pride, to aid, as far as he might be able, 
in having Mr. Douglas defeated in the approaching con- 
test for senatorial honors in Illinois ; in which contest all 
the true friends of popular freedom, and all the sympa- 
thizers with harassed and persecuted merit, were in feel- 
ing enlisted on the side of one who had thus far shown 
himself so far superior, both in moral and intellectual 
power, to all who had ventured into combat with him. 
It is a fact which has not heretofore awakened the con- 
sideration which is due to such conduct, that Mr. Buchan- 
an and those of the Democratic party who concurred with 
him in feeling, made the most strenuous, but, for the most 
part, covert and illicit efforts to secure the defeat of Mr. 
Douglas for re-election to the national Senate in Illinois. 
If Douglas could be now beaten (these men argued), the 
national Senate would be henceforth enfranchised from 
the potential influence which he had been for several years 
exerting in furtherance of doctrines which were altogeth- 
er repugnant to the theory that the 2^oweT of tlie govern- 
ment m^ight he properly used for the propagation of African 
slavery^ and for the purpose of extending its domain even into 
regions not especicdly adapted^ to it. On the other hand, 
there were, and for reasons not wholly dissimilar, persons 
in public life of exorbitant ambition, of capacities wholly 



248 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

unfit to contest with ttie illustrious champion of popu- 
lar sovereignty in the field of parliamentary debate, who 
intensely sighed for his absence from that arena where he 
had been recently acquiring such a surpassing and pecul- 
iar renown, in order to multiply the chances of their own 
future advancement, and at the same time facilitate the 
employment of Federal power as an ef&cient agent not 
only for the exclusion of slavery from the regions where 
it did not now subsist, but for its complete extinction 
where it had heretofore stood protected by the most sa- 
cred constitutional guarantees. All who were any where 
opposed to the grand conservative principle — alike valu- 
able in politics, in religion, and in morals, quieta non mo- 
vere — and who were still bent on the agitation of the ques- 
tion of slavery for any purpose, were alike opposed to the 
clear-headed and magnanimous statesman who now plain- 
ly and painfully perceived the error which he had im- 
pulsively committed in acquiescing in the attempt to re- 
scind, by special legislative enactment, the Missouri Com- 
promise, which had so long maintained the peace of the 
country and held in suppression the factious restlessness 
of sectional demagogues. Mr. Douglas felt an intense 
scorn for the shallow, sophisticating dogmatists both of 
the South and of the North, who noisily babbled forth 
the ineffably nonsensical jargon, which is yet mistaken 
for true political philosophy, that there must be an abso- 
lute similitude between the property interests and muni- 
cipal arrangements of communities bound together by a 
mere federative compact, in order to secure them against 
collisions and misunderstandings. He had read the his- 
tory of confederacies similar to ours, in other lands and 



DOUGLAS A PHILOSOPHIC STATESMAN. 249 

in other ages, and he had examined the profound exposi- 
tions of political wisdom which had made at different 
times their appearance in the world from the days of Ar- 
istotle and Cicero to those of Madison and Hamilton, Jay 
and Marshall, Webster and Calhoun ; and he would just 
as soon have supposed it impossible that two persons of 
opposite sexes could live in nuptial harmony, as he would 
have attached his faith to that essentially identical one 
which, asserts, " I believe this government can not perma- 
nently endure half slave and half free. I do not expect 
the Union to be dissolved ; I do not expect the house to 
fall ; but I do expect that it will cease to be divided. It 
will become all one thing or all the other. Either the 
opponents of slavery will arrest the farther spread of it, 
and place it where the public mind shall rest in the be- 
lief that it is in a course of ultimate extinction, or its ad- 
vocates will push, it forward till it shall become alike law- 
ful in all the states, old as well as new, North as well as 
South." Mr. Douglas as little believed with the moon- 
struck abstractionists of New England that freedom and 
social happiness could not possibly subsist in a country 
inhabited by races in several material respects distinguish- 
able from each other, without the absolute blending of 
all the members of them both in one homogeneous misce- 
genating mass, as he did with the swelling and pompous 
slaveholding rhetorician of the South that the republic 
would never see perfect repose until he should have the 
happiness of hearing ^^read the muster-roll of his slaves at 
the foot of Bunlcer Hill Monument^ 

The contest for the senatorial toga in Illinois, in the 
year 1858, attracted far more attention than any simila? 

L 2 



250 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

Struggle has ever commanded. The Eepublican party, 
some of the members of which had been on several occa- 
sions, during Mr. Douglas's conflicts on the floor of Con- 
gress with the pro-slavery champions, heard to express 
more or less of sympathy for the fearless and indomita- 
ble champion of non-intervention, could not forego the 
tempting opportunity now presented of taking advantage 
of the feud which existed in the Democratic party for the 
purpose of securing an additional senator of their now 
rapidly growing faction from the great Northwestern 
state which Mr. Douglas had so long and so faithfully 
represented. This party now brought forward, as its 
champion in the contest just commencing, a man who 
has since acquired much fame, and has left behind him 
many claims to the enduring respect and kindness of his 
countrymen. I shall hereafter have occasion to speak 
much of this remarkable personage — sometimes in ap- 
proval, sometimes in condemnation ; but I am glad to 
know that I shall be saved from the task of indulging in 
language of harsh reprobation or of unkind decrial in 
reference to one over whose recent untimely fate the 
whole republic has profoundly grieved, and the foul and 
barbarous manner of whose "taking off" has filled the 
bosoms of all civilized people with sentiments of the 
most lively horror and resentment. At present I shall 
only notice one or two material facts connected with this 
canvass, for which the worthy individual to whom I have 
just alluded had not the smallest responsibility. The 
first of these facts is, that a Democratic administration 
openly and unblushingly employed its ofiicial patronage 
in Illinois to defeat, if possible, the re-election to the na- 



FEDERAL PATRONAGE THROWN AGAINST DOUGLAS. 251 

tional Senate of the ablest and most effective cliampion 
of the Democratic cause who was now any where on the 
public stage. The second fact to which I shall allude in 
passing is, that the exclusive pro-slavery champions ev- 
ery where in the South publicly avowed their earnest de- 
sire, and apparently, too, with general popular approval, 
that Mr. Lincoln should be chosen to the Senate instead 
of Mr. Douglas. How could the South reasonably ex- 
pect to be defended hereafter by the Democratic states- 
men of the North against abolition assailment, when she 
could be thus deluded into ungenerous, impolitic, and 
positively ungrateful conduct toward the most fearless 
and gifted of her Northern Democratic defenders? In 
spite of all the adverse circumstances brought into opera- 
tion against him, Mr. Douglas was re-elected to the Sen- 
ate by a small majority, and in a short time was able to 
show himself once more in that body, where very speed- 
ily he subjected to just responsibility several of the most 
leading: of those senators who had enlisted in the unman- 
ly and disreputable conspiracy for his overthrow. 

And now do we not see a cause of future political 
weakness to the South, and her manifest exposure to mul- 
tiplied future ills, which a provident sagacity might have 
averted, and the detrimental influence of which, attrib- 
utable mainly to unprovoked injustice, and an almost un- 
precedented want of magnanimity and true manliness, 
might easily have been counteracted, if persistent folly 
and persecuting malice had in good season given way to 
returning equity and true heroism of spirit? As the 
Father of Poesy paints Achilles retiring indignantly to 
his tent, and his valiant myrmidonic legions withdrawn 



252 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

from tlie contest between the invading Grecian host and 
Troy, ahuost ready to succumb to her surrounding foes, 
in consequence of the arrogance and overbearing selfish- 
ness of Agamemnon and those subjected to his sway, so 
shall we perhaps see the all-indomitable Douglas and his 
multitudinous friends in the North driven, in the sequel, 
to the assumption of an attitude of cold and murky neu- 
trality, or to the indignant abandonment of a cause which 
had lost, to their view, so much of its pristine dignity, to- 
gether with its claims to sympathy and support. 

But there were other causes besides which were now 
operating against the interests of peace and true brother- 
hood, the malign influence of which was in no respect 
ascribable to "antagonisms imbedded in the very nature 
of our heterogeneous institutions," to which I shall now 
give a passing notice. 

All unprejudiced men will admit that the indecorous 
and ruffianly assault which had been made, several years 
anterior to the period we have now under review, upon 
a member of the United States Senate from Massachu- 
setts, Mr. Sumner, by a heady and indiscreet member of 
the House of Eepresentatives from the State of South 
Carolina, under circumstances of an extremely aggravated 
character, exerted, as was to be anticipated, a most poten- 
tial influence in alienating the minds of humane and en- 
lightened men in the free states of the Union from a 
cause which it was now plainly asserted sought, in its 
desperation, to sustain itself and perpetuate its existence 
by means which even the untutored savages of the forest 
would have disdained to employ ; and though this un- 
pardonable outrage was alike disapproved by all men 



ASSAULT UPON MR. SUMNER— DRED SCOTT DECISION. 253 

of proper social refinement and of true manliness of sen- 
timent alike in the South as in the North, yet was it 
plausibly attributed by excited orators and editors of 
sectional newspapers in the free states to the hated " in- 
stitution" of slavery. Thus was the whole South made 
to suffer the penalties of an act of blood and violence for 
which nine tenths of her high-toned and chivalrous pop- 
ulation would have disdained to assume the responsibility. 
The celebrated judicial decision in the Dred Scott case, 
however sound may be both the conclusions to which a 
majority of the judges of the Supreme Court had, after - 
full argument, arrived, as well as the reasoning by which 
those conclusions were supported, had been most delete- 
rious in its influence upon the popular mind in both sec- 
tions. Among the opponents of slavery in the North a 
suspicion had arisen that the case in which this important 
adjudication had been rendered had been adroitly gotten 
up for the occasion^ and that the whole affair was, in fact, 
a mere political device of the pro-slavery zealots to bol- 
ster up a feeble and sinking system against the assaults 
which all Christendom was leveling at it. It must be 
confessed that this view of the matter, so well calculated 
to bring the -highest judicial tribunal into contempt, and 
thus in some degree to discredit and subject to moral en- 
feeblement the whole frame of government of which the 
judiciary was so important an integral part, was strong- 
ly sustained by a portion of Mr. Buchanan's inaugural 
speech, which, though it did not attract any very special 
attention at the time of its delivery, yet, when the opin- 
ions of the judges had been given publicity, were sup- 
posed to indicate a secret understanding and arrange- 



254 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. ' 

ment between tlie judges and the incoming executive, to 
some extent justifying a fear that this '■''more tlian Ain- 
phictyonic GounciV (to repeat the descriptive language 
which Mr. Pinckney on a memorable occasion applied to 
the Supreme Court of the Union) was about to become a 
mere ministerial chamber in which to register executive 
edicts. The words of the inaugural referred to were as 
follows : 

"A difference of opinion has arisen in regard to the 
point of time when the people of a territory shall decide 
this question for themselves. 

" This is, happily, a matter of but little practical im- 
portance. Besides, it is a judicial question, which legiti- 
mately belongs to the Supreme Court of the United 
States, before whom it is now pending, and ivill^ it is un- 
derstood^ he speedily and finally settled. To this decision, in 
common with all good citizens, I shall cheerfully submit." 

While such was the state of feeling in the North in re- 
gard to the action of the Supreme Court of the United 
States, a very opposite one was unfortunately awakened 
among the pro-slavery devotees of the South, among 
whom a strong sentiment of exultation was apparent, as 
at the accomplishment of a signal triumph achieved over 
their abolition foes. With all three of the departments 
of government now apparently enlisted in the cause of 
maintaining and diffusing African slavery, while numer- 
ous Southern presses and innumerable local orators were 
rejoicing over this happy state of things, and anticipating 
the rapid spread of slavery into every part of the Amer- 
ican continent where climate and soil were at all adapted 
to it, it is not at all surprising that certain enterprising 



ATTEMPT TO REOPEN THE AFRICAN SLAVE-TRADE. 255 

and over-excited persons should have judged that a fa- 
vorable opportunity had arisen for reopening the African 
slave-trade. Some of the leading men of the South, in 
point of fact, about this period became the open advo- 
cates of the revival of this nefarious traffic. Many news- 
papers, edited by the unscrupulous agents of party, in sev- 
eral of the slaveholding states, earnestly advocated this 
accursed policy. The Commercial Convention, which as- 
sembled in the city of Vicksburg in the i^nonth of May, 
1859, and which contained representatives from nearly 
all the cotton-growing states of the Union, after a long 
and heated debate, adopted resolutions denouncing the 
law which prohibited the carrying on of this traffic as pi- 
racy, as alike unconstitutional and impolitic, and declared 
the wish of, that body that this infernal trade should bo 
renewed by the South, in despite of the constitutional ob- 
stacles which had before that time been supposed to ex- 
ist thereto. The discussions in the Convention on this 
important question were of a most heated and violent 
character. I heard these debates, and took some part 
in them also, in warm and indignant opposition to the 
policy proposed, which is all that I shall now say of my 
own action on this occasion. The leading advocate for 
the policy mentioned was Mr. Spratt, of Charleston, South 
Carolina, whose fervid and ingenious oration in support 
of this radical innovation upon the existing regulations 
of the government, containing the startling proposition 
that it had become necessary that slavery should assume 
an aggressive attitude^ was, a few days after the close of the 
Convention, a second time fulminated in the capital of the 
State. Mississippi, in presence of an earnestly-approv- 



256 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

ing audience, consisting, in part, of influential personages 
who had held, as some of them were then doing, the high- 
est official positions in the state. The timely and ener- 
getic efforts of Chief Justice Sharkey and others, who im- 
mediately convoked large public meetings, which they 
addressed, in opposition to Mr. Spratt's seductive commer- 
cmZ theory, in a week or two roused so much indignation 
among the slaveholding class in Central Mississippi (a 
class, by-the-by, ever more discreet and moderate in spirit 
and in action than the noisy and, in general, unscrupu- 
lous non-slaveliolding champions who assumed to repre-' 
sent them) that the political managers of the Democratic 
party deemed it wise to refuse the propounding of this 
new political issue at the State Convention, which assem- 
bled in the city of Jackson a few weeks subsequent to 
the proceedings which have just been recited. Of course, 
though, the action of the Commercial Convention, and 
the agitations in favor of reopening the slave-traffic, to- 
^gether with the fact that a considerable number of newly- 
imported savages from the western coast of Africa were 
being brought in at various Southern ports, and scattered 
over the cotton and sugar growing region, were duly 
made known in the North, and had a most unhappy in- 
fluence in adding to and in inflaming sectional rancor in 
that quarter of the Union. 

Almost contemporaneously with these extraordinary 
movements, the memorable rescuing occurrence took place 
in the bosom of the State of Ohio, out of which, it will be 
recollected, arose before the Supreme Court of that im- 
portant commonwealth the important question of the va- 
lidity of the Fugitive Slave Law. It was well known that 



GOVERNOR CHASE. 257 

the present Chief Justice Chase, then governor of this in- 
telligent -and populous state, was taking all legitimate 
steps to procure a decision of the highest appellate court 
of Ohio against the constitutionality of that law, the pas- 
sage of which he had strenuously opposed in Congress, 
and doubtless under the most conscientious convictions 
of public duty. For some time it was regarded as ex- 
ceedingly doubtful in what manner this grave and mo- 
mentous question might be decided — the more grave and 
momentous by reason of the well-known fact that Gov- 
ernor Chase had announced his determination to hack itj) 
the action of the Supreme Court by arms against the whole 
power of the general government, should the judges of 
that high tribunal decide the law to be a nullity. The 
present accomplished and able Justice Swayne (now also 
a member of the Supreme Court of the United States) 
argued the case, and with the most consummate ability, 
before the court by which it was to be decided, and, a 
good deal in opposition to the prevailing anticipation at 
the period, the decision of the court was finally such as 
to uphold the law and to preserve the public peace of the 
country. It was my fortune to be journeying through 
the State of Ohio at this period, and I can personally 
avouch the verity of the preceding statement of facts, as 
well as of the serious disturbance of the popular mind, 
both North and South, at this crisis, by reason of the rap- 
id diffusion of the reigning irritation through the various 
and multiplied channels of intelhgence afforded by the 
newspaper press of the country. 

But this was not all ; for, in the month of October, 
1859, one of the most extraordinary and astounding oc- 



258 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

currences had taken place in tlie bosom of the "Ancient 
Dominion," in the neighborhood of the lordly and classic 
Potomac, and almost in sight of the Capitol of the repub- 
lic, which has ever been recorded in history. The fear- 
ful movement of the celebrated Spartacus, who suddenly 
called into existence a general servile insurrection in It- 
aly, that at one time threatened to destroy Eome itself, 
and which it cost many thousand valuable Eoman lives 
to suppress, scarcely smote upon the popular mind of 
that region more powerfully than the intelligence which 
one morning, only six years ago, was communicated to 
the American people by fast-flying telegraphic dispatch- 
es, that Ossaioatomie Broiun, with a furious band of aboli- 
tion outlaws, had suddenly seized upon the government 
arsenal at Harper's Ferry ; had fired twice into the ex- 
press-train passing through this town ; had dispatched a 
large number of rifles into Maryland ; had cut the tele- 
graphic wires, so as to preclude the distribution of intel- 
ligence touching the alarming scenes in progress; had 
seized many white citizens, and impressed them into the 
service of the conspirators, and a still larger number of 
negroes; and had proclaimed the universal freedom of the 
blacks^ and the general massacre of the white popidation of 
Virginia^ and of the ivhole South^ who should presume to 
resist their hostile assaults. Brennus, in the Eoman Fo- 
rum ; Alaric or Attila, swooping down with resistless force 
upon the fair plains of France and Italy ; Genseric, with 
his Yandalic marauding soldiery, rapidly approaching the 
piled-up treasures of the boasted metropolis of the Euro- 
pean continent ; Mahomet, and his fierce fanatical suc- 
cessors, menacing the whole Christian world, had not 



OSSAWATOMIE BROWN. 259 

awakened a more lively feeling of consternation than 
now ensued. 

The sanguinary scenes which soon had their progress 
at Harper's Ferry, or in the neighborhood of that town, 
are already graphically familiar to the public mind every 
where ; and the grmi hero who initiated this carnival of 
death has already found earnest biographers, and has even 
become the subject of encomiastic homage of late, both in 
slip-shod fustian prose, and doggerel lugubrious verse. I 
have no taste for sucH sickening details as have had cur- 
rency, in regard either to the conflict of arms, which re- 
sulted ultimately in the capture of the wretched enthusiast 
Brown and several of his associates, or in relation to the 
execution of these persons which very soon after took 
place. I shall content myself with laying before my 
readers the j^rogramme of action adopted by the ill-fated 
Brown and his allies in crime, which has since been au- 
thenticdlly published. 

CONSTITUTION, ETC., ETC. 

"Preamble. — Whereas slavery, throughout its entire 
existence in the United States, is none other than the 
most barbarous, unprovoked, and unjustifiable war of one 
portion of its citizens against another portion, the only 
conditions of which are perpetual imprisonment and 
hopeless servitude, or absolute extermination, in utter 
disregard and violation of those eternal and self-evident 
truths set forth in our Declaration of Independence : 

" :77zere/o?'e, We, the citizens of the United States, and 
the oppressed people who, by a recent decision of the Su- 
preme Court, are declared to have no rights which the 



260 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

white man is bound to respect, together with all the oth- 
er people degraded by, the laws thereof, do, for the time 
being, ordain and establish for ourselves the following 
provisional Constitution and ordinances, the better to pro- 
tect our people, property, lives, and liberties, and to gov- 
ern our actions. 

"Art. I. Qualifications of Membership. — All persons of 
mature age, whether proscribed, oppressed, and enslaved 
citizens, or of proscribed and oppressed races of the 
United States, who shall agree to sustain and enforce the 
provisional Constitution and ordinances of organization, 
together with all minor children of such persons, shall be 
held to be fully entitled to protection under the same." 

"Art. XXYIII. Property. — All captured or confisca- 
ted property, and all property the product of the labor 
of those belonging to this organization and of their fam- 
ilies, shall be held as the property of the whole equally, 
without distinction, and may be used for the common 
benefit, or disposed of for the same object. And any 
person, officer or otherwise, who shall improperly retain, 
secrete, use, or needlessly destroy such property, or any 
property found, captured, or confiscated, belonging to the 
enemy, or shall willfully neglect to render a full and fair 
statement of such property by him so taken or held, shall 
be guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction, shall be 
punished accordingly. 

"Art. XXIX. Safety or Intelligence Fund. — All mon- 
ey, plate, watches, or jewelry captured by honorable war- 
fare, found, taken, or confiscated, belonging to the enemy, 
shall be held sacred, to constitute a liberal safety or in- 
telligence fund ; and any person who shall improperly re- 



PROGRAMME OF BROWN. 261 

tain, dispose of, hide, use, or destroy such money or other 
articles above named, contrary to the provisions and spir- 
it of this article, shall be deemed guilty of theft, and, on 
conviction thereof, shall be punished accordingly. The 
treasuiier shall furnish the commander-in-chief at all times 
with a full statement of the condition of such fund and 
its nature." 

Art. XXXIII. Volunteers. — All persons who may come 
forward, and shall voluntarily deliver up slaves, and have 
their names registered on the books of this organization, 
shall, so long as they continue at peace, be entitled to the 
fullest protection in person and property, though not 
connected with this organization, and shall be treated as 
friends, and not merely as persons neutral. 

''Art. XXXIY. Neutrals. — The persons and property 
of all non-slaveholders, who shall remain absolutely neu- 
tral, shall be respected so far as circumstances will allow 
of it, but they shall not be entitled to any active protec- 
tion." 

"Art. XXXYI. Property confiscated. — The entire per- 
sonal and real property of all persons known to be act- 
ing, either directly or indirectly, with or for the enemy, 
or found in arms with them, or found willfully holding 
slaves, shall be confiscated and taken, wherever and when- 
ever it may be found, in either free or slave states." 

"Art. XLYI. These Articles not for the Overthroiu of 
Government. — The foregoing articles shall not be con- 
strued so as in any way to encourage the overthrow of 
any state government or of the general government of 
the United States, and look to no dissolution of the Un- 
ion, but simply to amendment and repeal ; and our flag 



262 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

shall be the same that our fathers fought under in the 
Ee volution." 

It is exceedingly difficult to tell what would have been 
the wisest course for the government of Virginia to pur- 
sue at this conjuncture. Brown and his confederates had 
all unquestionably forfeited their lives, and neither the 
justice nor legality of putting them to death could be de- 
nied. Under the light of subsequent events, it seems to 
me at present that it would have been more politic to 
spare the lives of these guilty offenders, than b}^ an ex- 
citing trial and public execution, under such circum- 
stances as were connected with the occasion, to convert 
them, in the estimation of thousands of the ignorant and 
the fanatical, into martyrs. Certain it is that, anterior to 
the death of Brown, there were no striking indications of 
awakened sympathy to be found in any part of the North. 
I well remember being called to Cincinnati, Ohio, during 
the month of December, 1859 (in which month Brown 
suffered the penalties of the law), for the delivery of a 
lecture on the value of the Federal Union^ and containing 
admonitory warnings of the dangers which seemed to my 
mind to be connected with the coming presidential elec- 
tion. This lecture was pronounced before the Mercan- 
tile Association of Cincinnati, on the night before Brown's 
mortal career was to be closed at Charlestown,Virginia. 
On the very day of his execution, I was journeying to 
Evansville for the purpose of there repeating the lecture 
referred to ; on the next day I was on my way to Indian- 
apolis for a similar purpose ; and still, on the succeeding 
one, with a like duty before me, to be performed in the 
city of St. Louis. I had a most ample opportunity of 



BROWN MADE A 3IARTYR, UNWISELY. 263 

testing the condition of the popular mind in regard to 
Brown and his attempted achievements, and I do now 
conscientiously aver that, in the whole course of my jour- 
neyings, I did not meet with one single man, one single 
woman, or one single child who appeared to have the 
least respect or sympathy for John Brown. 

The actings of this fierce and bloody monster must, I 
suppose though, be noiu recognized as one of a series of 
events predestined to occur from the foundation of the ivorld^ 
as part and portion of an "irrepressible conflict between 
o;pposing and enduring forces ;" and we must be content to 
look back upon the same as matters which belong not to 
the ordinary concerns of earth, chargeable either to dis- 
cretion and virtue, or to the want of these attributes, but 
to the mysterious ordinations of Divinity, entitled to 
challenge our unqualified respect and homage. The 
storm of sectional hostility began by this time to rage 
most furiously all over the land ; for 

"Every mountain now had found a voice, 
And Jura answered from her misty shroud 
Back to the joyous Alps who called to her aloud!" 



264: 'SCYLLA AND CHAKYBDIS, 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Other Causes of sectional Excitement at this Period.— The Helper Book, 
and its unfortunate Discussion in Congress. — Resolutions forced 
through the Senate, mainly though the Agency of Mr. Davis, of Missis- 
sippi, having in View the double Object of destroying Mr. Douglas, and 
dragging the Democratic Party into an unnational and aggressive At- 
titude.— Movements of William L.Yancey in the Year 1859, and early 
in the Year 1860, having in View the breaking up of the Federal Union 
in the event of a Republican President being elected.— Efforts in the 
South to bring about the Election of Mr. Lincoln, in order to obtain 
the desired Object. — Democratic Conventions at Charleston and Balti- 
more reviewed. — Leading Incidents of the Presidential Canvass of 1860 
and its Results.— Sketch of William L. Yancey. 

We now nearly approach tlie momentous presidential 
election of 1860, upon tlie result of which so much of the 
weal or woe of the republic was fated to depend. The 
session of Congress immediately preceding that contest 
was more than ordinarily marked with excitement. The 
fierce discussion of the merits of a foolish fanatical book 
(issued a short time before by an obscure and ignorant 
person in North Carolina) in the House of Eepresenta- 
tives, so unwisely and unprofitably brought on at the in- 
stance of Mr. Clarke, of Missouri, and the debate upon 
the Broiun conspiracy^ allusions to which have already 
been made, were but preliminary to still more fervid 
controversies in the Democratic Presidential Convention, 
and before the people in their primary capacity. Sever- 
al movements besides, having no great importance but as 



ATTEMPTS TO CRUSH DOUGLAS. 265 

they throw more or less light upon the course of after 
events, will be now alluded to. In the Territory of New 
Mexico, where no reasonable being ever yet supposed 
that the system of African slavery, if it ever should be 
forcibly carried there, could long have a healthful and 
vigorous existence, by reason of the unpropitious charac- 
ter both of the soil and climate of that region, as Mr. 
Webster, before his decease, had so clearly demonstrated, 
legislative enactments, manifestly prompted from Wash- 
ington City, and which could only be productive of in- 
creased sectional rancor, had been sonie months before 
adoipted, 2^roiectwe of slaveholding rights in said territory. 
With a view of making the pro-slavery party in the Sen- 
ate triumphant over Mr. Douglas and non-intervention, 
certain resolutions were dispatchfully forced through that 
body, the principal of which were as follows : 

'' Resolved^ That neither Congress nor a territorial Leg- 
islature, whether by direct legislation or legislation of an 
indirect and unfriendly character, possesses power to an- 
nul or impair the constitutional right of any citizen of 
the United States to take his slave property into the 
common territories, and there hold and enjoy the same 
while the territorial condition remains. 

'' Resolved^ That if experience should at any time prove 
that the judicial and executive authority do not possess 
means to insure adequate protection to constitutional 
rights in a territory, and if the territorial government 
should fail or refuse to provide the necessary remedies 
for that purpose, it will be the duty of Congress to sup- 
ply such deficiency. 

^^ Resolved^ That the inhabitants of a territory of the 

M 



266 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

United States, when tliey rightfully form a Constitution 
to be admitted as a state into the Union, may then for 
the first time, like the people of a state when forming a 
new Constitution, decide for themselves whether slavery, 
as a domestic institution, shall be maintained or prohib- 
ited within their jurisdiction ; and they shall be admitted 
into the Union with or without slavery as their Consti- 
tution may prescribe at the time of their admission." 

These resolutions, with others, had been pressed to 
adoption mainly by the exertions of Mr. Jefferson Davis; 
and Mr. Douglas having been regularly voted in senato- 
rial Democratic caucus to be no longer worthy of being 
recognized as a Democratic senator — a resolution for this 
purpose having been introduced by Mr. Slidell, of Louis- 
iana (avowedly at the instance of Mr. Buchanan) — the 
scene of contention was shifted to Charleston, South Car- 
olina, in which city it had been agreed that the next Na- 
tional Democratic Convention should assemble. Before 
the session of this body commenced, several other occur- 
rences had taken place, which are necessary now to be 
noticed. 

In the month of January, 1860, Mr. William L. Yan- 
cey, of Alabama, had delivered a speech, which had, as a 
printed pamphlet, been widely circulated, in which he 
had said : 

''To obtain the aid of the Democracy in this contest, 
it is necessary to make a contest in its Charleston Con- 
vention. In that body, Douglas's adherents will press 
his doctrine to a decision. If the state-rights men keep 
out of that Convention, that decision must inevitably be 
against the South, and that either in direct favor of the 



WILLIAM L. YANCEY, THE ORACLE OF SECESSION. 267 

Douglas doctrine, or by the indorsement of the Cincin- 
nati platform, under which Douglas claims shelter for his 
principles. The state-rights men should present in that 
Convention their demand for a decision, and they will 
obtain an indorsement of their demands or a denial of 
these demands. If indorsed, we shall have greater hope 
of triumph within the Union. If denied, in my opinion, 
the state-rights wing should secede from the Convention, 
and appeal to the whole people of the South, without dis- 
tinction of parties, and organize another Convention upon 
the basis of their principles, and go into the election with 
a candidate nominated by it as a grand constitutional 
party. But in the presidential contest a Black Repub- 
lican may be elected. If this dire event should happen, 
in my opinion, the only hope of safety for the South is a 
withdrawal from the Union before he shall be inaugura- 
ted — before the sword and the treasury of the Federal 
government shall be placed in the keeping of that party. 
I would suggest that the several state Legislatures should 
by law require the governor, when it shall be made man- 
ifest that the Black Eepublican candidate for the presi- 
dency shall receive a majority of the electoral vote, to 
call a Convention of the people of the state to assemble 
in time to provide for their safety before the 4th of 
March, 1860. If, however, a Black Republican should 
not be elected, then, in pursuance of the policy of making 
this contest within the Union, we should initiate meas- 
ures in Congress w^hich should lead to a repeal of all the 
•unconstitutional acts against slavery. If we should fail 
to obtain so just a system of legislation, then the South 
should seek her independence out of the Union." (Ap- 
plause.) 



268 SCYLLA AND CHAKYBDIS. 

In another speech, delivered at Columbia, South Caro- 
lina, in July, 1860,.Mr. Yancey had said : 

^'But the true question is not, are we stronger than 
we have been, but are we as strong as our necessities re- 
quire? Are we as strong as we rightfully ought to be? 
This question must be answered in the negative. Can 
we have any hope of righting ourselves and doing justice 
to ourselves in the Union? If there is such hope, it 
would be our duty to make the attempt. For one, I have 
no such hope, but I am determined to act with those who 
have such hope, as long, and only as long, as it may be 
reasonably indulged ; not so much with any expectation 
that the South will obtain justice in the Union, as with 
the hope that by thus acting, within a reasonable time, 
there will be obtained unity among our people in going 
out of the Union." .(Applause.) "If we remain in the 
Union, we must demand a repeal of every unconstitu- 
tional act against the institution of slavery. We must 
demand a repeal of the acts of 1807, 1819, 1851." 

This same gentleman, who was presently to become 
the Magnus Apollo of the disorganizing portion of the 
Charleston Democratic Convention, had offered a resolu- 
tion at a Commercial Convention which held its session 
in Montgomery, Alabama, in these words : 

" Resolved^ That the laws of Congress prohibiting the 
slave-trade ought to be repealed." 

The same personage had published a letter in June, 
1859, which contained the following declaration : 

" For one, I am unwilling to see continued on our stat- 
ute-books these semi-abolition acts, but desire to see the 
subject of slavery taken from the grasp of the Federal 



CHARLESTON CONVENTION — CALEB GUSHING. 2G9 

government, find that government only to be allowed to 
act upon it to protect it. Whether the African slave-trade 
will be carried on should not depend upon that govern- 
ment, but upon the will of each slaveholding state. To 
that tribunal alone should the question be submitted, and 
by the decision of that tribunal alone should the South- 
ern people abide.'' 

And now let us consider for a moment the convention- 
al movements both in Charleston and Baltimore, in which 
Mr. Yancey was to" participate so prominently. The 
Convention assembled on the 23d of April, 1860, and 
General Francis B. Flournoy, of Arkansas, was chosen as 
temporary chairman. The inevitahle Caleb Cushing, of 
Massachusetts, was subsequently made permanent presi- 
dent of the body. This individual was well known to be 
confidently expecting at the time a position on the Su- 
preme Bench of the Union, but perfectly well knew that 
he stood no chance of appointment unless his conduct in 
the Convention should be pleasing to the secession lead- 
ers, to whom Mr. Buchanan had virtually transferred 
himself, with all the official power and patronage which 
he possessed. It must be confessed that Mr. Cushing act- 
ed his part well as moderator, nor had those in whose 
services he had enlisted, /or a consideration^ any Reasona- 
ble ground of complaint on the score of his failing to per- 
form any part of the special duties which had been pre- 
scribed for his observance. 

The various contests which arose upon the political 
platform, though sufficiently interesting at the time, are 
not needful here to be described. The great issue be- 
tween the two wings of the Democratic party, the non- 



270 SCYLLA AND CHAKYBDIS. 

^ intervention and tlie intervention members thereof, has 
been already sufficiently explained. A non-intervention 
platform having been adopted by a decided majority of 
the Convention, the cloven foot of secession began at once 
to display itself. Mr. L. P. Walker, of Alabama, who was 
soon to become the Secretary of War of a new and dis- 
tinct government, tind, as such, was to have the doubtful 
honor of initiating the most unnecessary, and profitless 
war that has ever yet been carried on, arose, and present- 
ed the written instructions which the Alabama delegates 
to the Convention had brought with them, received from 
the Democratic Convention of that state, to whom the 
delegates owed their appointment, and also aj'^rotest based 
upon said instructions ; after the presentation and reading 
of which, the Alabama delegation, evidently in accord- 
ance with an arrangement long before agreed upon, with- 
drew, as the instructions under which they professed to be 
acting positively ordered them to do, Mr. Yancey was 
among the delegates of Alabama by whom this extraor- 
dinary part was enacted, and though, deeming it expe- 
dient to keep himself a little in reserve, he was evidently 
the ruling spirit in the proceeding. It was evident now 
that secession had put on its cocked hat, had lashed its 
sword to its side, and was ready for comhai to the death with 
all that might attempt to obstruct its long-cherished designs ; 
but Caleb Cushing remained still in his high and respon- 
sible position, and his neighbor and friend, Mr. B. F. But- 
ler, of Lowell, Massachusetts, who was also fighting for 
official advancement, followed his illustrious example. 
Next in order, as was reasonably to be expected, was the 
withdrawal from the Convention of the Mississippi dele- 



SECESSION ON THE RAMPAGE. 271 

gation. Mr. Glen, of Mississippi, who had been, to my 
personal knowledge, a flaming disunionist for more than 
ten years, covered the retreat of himself and his co-dele- 
gates with the following characteristic speech : 

" Sir, at Cincinnati we adopted a platform on which 
we all agreed. Now answer me, ye men of the North, 
of the East, of the South, and of the West, what was the 
construction placed upon that platform in different sec- 
tions of the Union ? You at the West said it meant one 
thing, we of the South said it meant another. Either 
we were right, or you were right ; we were wrong, or you 
were wrong. We came here to ask you which was right 
and which was wrong. You have maintained your po- 
sition. You say that you can not give us an acknowl- 
edgment of that right which, I tell you here now, in 
coming timQ will be your only safety in your contests 
with the Black Eepublicans of Ohio and of the North. 
(Cheers.) 

''Why, sir, turn back to the history of your own lead- 
ing men. There sits a distinguished gentleman, Hon. 
Charles E. Stuart, of Michigan, once a representative of 
one of the sovereign states of the Union in the Senate, 
who then voted that Congress had the constitutional 
power to pass the Wilmot Proviso, and to exclude slav- 
ery from the territories; and now, when the Supreme 
Court has said that it has not that power, he comes for- 
ward and tells Mississippians that that same Congress is 
impotent to protect that same species of property ! There 
sits my distinguished friend, the senator from Ohio (Mr. 
Pugh), who, but a few nights since, told us from that 
stand that, if a territorial government totally misused 



272 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

their powers or abused them, Congress could wipe out 
that territorial government altogether. And yet, when 
we come here and ask him to give us j^rotedion in case 
that territorial government robs us of our property and 
strikes the star which answers to the name of Mississippi 
from the flag of the Union, so far as the Constitution 
gives her protection, he tells iis, with his hand upon his 
heart, as Governor Payne, of Ohio, had before done, that 
they will part with their lives before they will acknowl- 
edge the principle which we contend for. 

"Gentlemen, in such a situation of things in the Con- 
vention of our great party, it is right that we should part. 
Go your way, and we will go ours. The South leaves 
you — not like Hagar, driven into the wilderness, friend- 
less and alone — but I tell Southern men here, and for 
them I tell the North, that in less than sixty days you 
will find a united South standing side by side with us." 
(Prolonged and enthusiastic cheering.) 

Next withdrew the delegation from Louisiana, except- 
ing two of them, who chose to remain. Next the del- 
egates from South Carolina made good their retreat. 
Then Florida followed. Next went out the delegation 
from Texas. Then three delegates from Arkansas. Now 
the Georgia delegation asked leave to retire for the pur- 
pose of consultation; no one having objection to this, 
they withdrew accordingly. Then two of the Delaware 
delegates retired, and the third announced his willingness 
to remain for a season. After a good deal of fiery and 
fustian discussion of immaterial points mainly, the Con- 
vention commenced balloting for the nomination of pres- 
ident. Douglas received ll-S-J votes ; E. M. T. Hunter, 42 



' THE TWO DEMOCRATIC CONVENTIONS. 273 

votes; Andrew Johnson, 12 ; Daniel S. Dickinson, 7; Jo- 
seph Lane, 6; Isaac Toncey, 2|, Jefferson Davis, 1^; 
Franklin Pierce, 1. Several other ballots occurred ; but 
no one having obtained a vote of two thirds, the Conven- 
tion adjourned, to meet at Baltimore on Monday, the 18th 
day of June.- The seceding delegates, having adopted an 
iniervenilon platform^ adjourned to meet at Kichmond on 
the second Monday of June. 

The majority of the Convention, who had agreed to as- 
semble in Baltimore on the 18th of June, met according- 
ly ; but it being soon ascertained that Douglas's strength 
had considerably increased since the adjournment, the 
most disreputable proceeding which had yet taken place 
occurred. Mr. Eussell, of Virginia, one of the most expert 
political managers that Virginia has yet known, Mr. Lan- 
der, of North Carolina, Mr. Ewing, of Tennessee, Mr. John- 
son, of Maryland, Mr. Smith, of California, Mr. Saulsbury, 
of Delaware, Mr. Caldwell, of Kentucky, and Mr. Clarke, 
of Missouri, announced the withdrawal of a whole or a 
part of their respective delegations. Mr. Gushing, uneasy 
about the judgeship for which he was ardently sighing, 
all hopes of which he must relinquish if he acquiesced in 
the support of Mr. Douglas, in gloriously shedaddlecV^ from 
the chairmanship of the Convention, which thenproceed- 

* I trust this very classic personage, who I recollect was formerly ac- 
customed to boast of his having been the university associate of Mr. Ban- 
croft and other illustrious Cambridge graduates, will excuse my applying 
to him a term which is, I believe, not yet to be found in our English dic- 
tionaries. It being a strictly military term, though^ which has recently 
crept into use, it is probable that one of jMr. Cushing's decided warlike 
tastes will, on reflection, perceive the manifest propriety of my using this 
very significant word as faithfully typical of his sudden exodus from the 

^^r 2 



274 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

ed to ballot for president, when, Douglas having received 
173 J votes, the following resolution was adopted : 

'■^ Resolved^ unanimously^ That Stephen A.Douglas, of the 
State of Illinois, having now received two thirds of all the 
votes given in this Convention, is hereby declared, in ac- 
cordance with the rules governing this body, and in ac- 
cordance with the uniform customs and rules of former 
Democratic National Conventions, the regular nominee 
of the Democratic party of the United States for the office 
of President of the United States." 

Herschel Y. Johnson was afterward nominated for the 
vice-presidency. 

The Convention of the seceders met at Eichmond on 
the 11th of June, adjourned to Baltimore, elected Ca- 
leb Cushing* their president, reaffirmed their interven- 
tion platform, nominated Breckenridge and Lane for the 

august seat of moderatoi* of the Baltimore Convention, which he had con- 
tinued to occupy so long as he could be of service to his employers. 

* This gentleman, who is never weary in well-doing, was luckily on 
hand for this new directorial position, and his affection for his disorgan- 
izing secession friends proved itself to be absolutely exhaustless. Is it 
not marvelous that Mr. Gushing should afterward have been among the 
first to tender his immaculate sword to President Lincoln as a commander 
of Union soldiery against those whom he had done so much to inveigle 
into this same war? Luckily for his friend Jefferson Davis and those as- 
sociated with him, this redoubtable champion was not given the throat- 
cutting employment which he sought, else there is no knowing what won- 
drous deeds of valor he would have performed. It is perhaps fortunate for 
tlie fame of Grant, Sherman, and others, that the field of glory was not 
opened to this undeveloped Napoleon, since no one who knows him can 
doubt that, had it been, he would have surpassed in heroic achievement all 
that Gresar, or Hannibal, or Alexander had done. The last time I talked 
with Mr. Gushing, he was deliberating whether he should not enlist in a fil- 
ibustering pi'oject on the Queen of the Antilles. How it happened that he 



EXALTED PATRIOTISM OF JOHN BELL. 275 

presidency and the vice -presidency, and then, after a 
speech from Mr. Yancey, adjourned. 

Thus was the ingenious scheme for the breaking up of 
the Democratic party as a national association, and ren- 
dering it utterly powerless for contesting in the North 
with its great Eepublican rival, most ingloriously con- 
summated, and the way opened very conveniently for the 
execution thereafter, at a suitable time, of the long-cher- 
ished project of secession from the Union. 

No fact is better known, and I can myself personally 
avouch it, that, had Douglas or any suitable man been 
nominated in 1860 upon a non-intervention or Union 
platform (for really at this period they meant the same 
thing), the American party, now assuming the name of 
'' The Constitutional Union Party," would not have come 
into the field at all. Mr. Bell, always preferring the hap- 
piness of the republic to his personal advancement, would 
have sustained the Democratic ticket, and Douglas, or 
some other non-interventionist and true friend of the 
Federal Union, would have been easily elected. Kor do 
I make this statement as to Mr. Bell without full authori- 
ty ; for oftentimes have I heard from the lips of my ven- 
erated neighbor and friend declarations, both before he 
was nominated for the presidency and afterward, which 
fully justify me in what has been said upon this interest- 
ing point. Well do I recollect the friendly and almost 
fraternal interview which, occurred between Mr. Douglas 
and Mr. Bell, at my own mansion in the city of Nashville, 

concluded not to go in quest of immortal fame in that direction I have 
never been informed. Perhaps his future biographer may enlighten 
us. 



276 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

on the evening of the day on which the former deliver- 
ed his able speech in that city in the summer of 1860, as 
well as the eminent magnanimity and patriotism which 
breathed in every word uttered by either of them ; and 
I am well satisfied that at the moment when this meeting 
took place, either of these personages would have rejoiced 
to know that his generous and high-minded competitor 
would be chosen president, assured, as he could not but 
be, that the republic would be perfectly safe in such 
hands, and that the mad war of sectionalism would be at 
least held in suppression for the coming four years. 

And now, at the hazard of being regarded by some as 
a little egotistical, I find it convenient to insert a few 
extracts from one of many popular addresses delivered 
by me during the summer of 1860, all substantially sim- 
ilar — as similar in views and spirit, likewise, to various 
political speeches delivered both in the North and in the 
South, and alike by the supporters of Mr. Bell and those 
of Mr. Douglas, during this eventful presidential cam- 
paign — which extracts are inserted here alone for the pur- 
pose of showing in a graphic and distinct manner how 
earnestly solicitous many of those whom we shall, in less 
than a year, see drawn into the vortex of rebellion, were, 
five years ago, to avert those sad consequences which have 
since ensued, by the seasonable utterance of frank and pa- 
triotic premonitions in reference to those dangers which 
to all sagacious minds already began to be most easy of 
descrial. 

The political address referred to was delivered in the 
city of Nashville, on Saturday, July 7th, 1860, at a meet- 
ing convened for the ratification of the conventional pro- 



EFFORTS TO COUNTERACT DISUNION. 277 

ceedings in Baltimore which had resulted in the nomina- 
tions already mentioned. (This speech was printed at the 
time in the Nashville papers, and had more or less circu- 
lation.) 

"Ji"r. President and Fellow-citizens : 
*' The present is truly a grave and momentous occa- 
sion, if, indeed, such an occasion can arise on this side 
that dread scene which is hereafter to bring to an end all 
the troublous and varied concerns of earth-born beings. 
The only people now existing in the world who can with 
propriety claim the full and unrestrained possession of 
civil and religious freedom, are in imminent danger of 
losing that freedom. We are now visibly trembling 
upon the very edge of that precipice down which so 
many republics of ancient and of modern times have 
tumbled into ruin. Institutions, the wisest and the best 
ever planned and put in prosperous exercise by the chil- 
dren of men, are even now tottering to their foundations, 
and, I seriously apprehend, are soon to be shaken and 
convulsed with a still more fearful and tempestuous com- 
motion. The fierce, organized bands of fanatical aboli- 
tionists of the North are already girding on their armor 
and making ready their weapons of warfare for the most 
exciting and unsparing political conflict that our country 
has yet known. The rampant and furious secessionists of 
the South, inspired, energized, and led on by the Yanceys 
and the Davises of this sunny region, hypocritically claim- 
ing ' equality of rights,' and vociferously denying all trea- 
sonable projects, are aiming at this moment to rend the 
Union which we have so long loved and cherished, and, 



278 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

by the skillful concealment of their real purposes, are en- 
listing thousands as proselytes and co-operators, who, if 
they were apprised of the real objects of these insidious 
and deceptions teachers, would start back with horror 
and affright from the scenes in which they Lie expected 
ultimately to bear part. The old fraternal ties, both of 
church and state, which formerly constituted our surest 
guarantee of national repose and happiness, have been 
either rudely snapped asunder, or are at this very instant 
violently strained to their utmost capacity of tension. 
Corruption stalks abroad throughout the whole land, and 
even the high places of civic trust are no longer free 
from the taint of impurity. Demagogues of every stamp 
and hue, numerous as the frogs of Egypt, are heard to 
croak forth here, there, every where, their hollow sepul- 
chral accents, dismally ominous of national confusion and 
ruin. The wholesome conservative influence once pos- 
sessed by the government itself has no longer any per- 
ceptible existence, but has, indeed, been supplanted by a 
malignant virus which is fast consuming the very vitals 
of the body politic. Popular confidence in rulers is, for 
a time, at an end. Anarchy, licentiousness, and lawless 
violence are every where displaying themselves. The 
Washington s, the Jacksons, the Clays, the Websters, the 
Polks, have passed away ; a generation of babbling fac- 
tionists, noisy declaimers, self-consequential, dreamy ab- 
stractionists, servile, sycophantic worshipers of ostenta- 
tious false greatness has succeeded, who impudently claim 
ascendency in our national councils. The high function- 
aries of government, with their innumerable subordinates 
scattered and ramified all over the republic, in fearful 



EICHAKD II. AND JAMES BUCHANAN. 279 

unison with that worse than Briarean monster, a corrupt 
stipendiary press, instead of upholding and sustaining the 
governmental system with which they stand affiliated, 
with a strange and uprecedented blindness, are in close 
alliance with those who have deliberately decreed that 
system to destruction, and are urging that the dark fiends 
of civic rebellion shall be invited to perform their infer- 
nal orgies in the very temple of freedom. The whole 
eighty millions of executive patronage is now being 
wielded for the worst and most dangerous purposes of 
faction. The freedom of popular elections in the states 
and territories is no longer regarded. Since the reign of 
Eichard II., in England (that ill-fated monarch who was 
dethroned and put to death for attempting, through the 
sheriffs of the realm, to control the election of members 
of the House of Commons), nothing so alarming has oc- 
curred on either side of the Atlantic as the efforts openly 
and unblushingly made by Mr. Buchanan and those as- 
sociated with him to influence the result of the election 
of members of both houses of Congress by means of Fed- 
eral official patronage. It is evident that a few years 
more of such vicious, tyrannic intermeddling, if unhappi- 
ly successful, will fill the national Legislature with the 
mere slaves and servitors of the executive will, prepared 
to obey all his commands, and obediently to register his 
edicts. Whenever this state of things shall be brought 
about, it is plain that popular freedom will exist no lon- 
ger, nor independent legislation, nor any possibility, even, 
of escaping the gulf of executive despotism. All power 
will be virtually concentrated in a single executive chief, 
who, by whatever name called, will be, in fact, nothing 



280 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

more nor less than an imperial autocrat. But it is scarce- 
ly possible that even so favorable a result will be real- 
ized. The overthrow of the Union, and the division and 
subdivision of the republic into a half dozen or even a 
dozen warring confederacies, all of them necessarilj^ main- 
taining a standing army, and sooner or later destined to 
become severe and bloody tyrannies,, is the natural and 
necessary result of the monstrous and undeniable alli- 
ance which has been lately formed between our present 
Federal chief magistrate and the open enemies of the 
Union. Washington firmly but resolutely drew the 
sword against the whisky insurrectionists of Pennsylva- 
nia ; Jefferson employed all his giant energies for the 
suppression of the Burr conspiracy ; Madison exploded 
the Hartford Convention project ; Jackson fulminated 
his sublime overawing proclamation against the nulli- 
iiers and secessionists of South Carolina ; Fillmore, with 
a quiet, serene wisdom, steered the ship of state for three 
years successfully and peacefully, all the while observing 
faithfully the prescriptions which Clay and his associates 
placed in his hands, known as the Compromise of 1850 ; 
Buchanan — oh, most shamefal example ! — has deliberate- 
ly joined the ranks of the Southern disunionists. Mean- 
while the true and reliable friends of the Union, the up- 
holders of the Constitution and the laws, the advocates 
of social peace and order, are, to a most serious and alarm- 
ing extent, separated from each other, fighting in oppos- 
ing party ranks, wasting in profitless and imfraternal 
strife energies which, blended, united, inspirited with the 
fervid glow of patriotism, and valiantly and persistently 
wielded against the common foe, might rescue Liberty 



EFFORTS TO DEFEAT SECESSION. 281 

from peri], save the Union from wreck, and reclaim, ren- 
ovate, and preserve this great nation. 

" Under these trying circumstances a presidential elec- 
tion is in a few months to occur, in connection with 
which it really seems to me that there are only two ques- 
tions worth a moment's consideration. These are : 

" 1. Is the government of our fathers to he preserved? 

" 2. Is corruption to he suppressed — the Augean stahle to 
he thoroughly cleansed? 

"He who honestly labors for the attainment of these 
two public ends may possibly err in the selection of the 
means which he employs, but is worthy of the respect 
and love of all patriots for the goodness of his intentions ; 
he who is opposed to either of these meritorious objects 
is unworthy to be called a freeman. 

" Five presidential tickets are in the field. In relation 
to two of them I have nothing to say, either in support 
or in opposition. Were I to bestow npon them language 
of commendation, I should but disparage and discredit 
them ; I should cease to respect myself were I tempted, 
at such a trying and perilous moment in our national his- 
tory, to apply to them terms either of decrial or of ridi- 
cule. My fight is with Eepublicanism in the North, and 
secession in the South ; and for the purpose of uprooting 
and destroying both these dangerous factions, I deem it 
my duty to yield a hearty support to the National Dem- 
ocratic presidential ticket, upon which are enrolled the 
names of Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, and Herschel 
y. Johnson, of Georgia. 

" Every man whom I now address well knows that the 
Eepublican presidential candidate stands pledged, if elect- 



282 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

ed to the station which he seeks, to labor for the exclu- 
sion, by congressional enactment, of African slavery from 
our vacant territories ; for the abolition of slavery in the 
District of Columbia; and for the modification, in several 
vital respects, of what is known as the Fugitive Slave 
Law. The adoption of either of these measures will 
inevitably destroy the Union. Every Southern state, 
or rather a majority of them, have long been formally 
pledged to secession, as a necessary remedy against this, 
which they would deem intolerable oiopressioii. Indeed, 
the Union men of the South, in order to procure a quiet 
and peaceable acquiescence in the compromise measures 
of 1850, had to pledge themselves to their excited coun- 
trymen that, in the event of the passage of such laws as 
those enumerated, or any one of them, they would them- 
selves take the initiative in the work of disunion. Now 
I wish to deal fairly with this matter, and must therefore 
declare that, in my judgment, either Bell, Houston, or 
Douglas, in the event of election to the presidency, would 
promptly exercise the veto power for the defeat of any 
of these measures, which action on the part of the execu- 
tive would in all probability effectually defeat such con- 
gressional enactments, for want of a two thirds vote in 
support of them in the two houses of the national Legis- 
lature. The veto power, in this view, must be regarded 
by all reasonable men as the very sheet-anchor of the 
public safety, calculated to afford more solid and substan- 
tial protection to Southern institutions than all the silly 
abstractions that ever entered the moonstruck and ill-bal- 
anced craniums of all the political metaphysicians that 
ever cursed the councils of the country with their baleful 
presence. 



EXPOSITION OF THE SECESSION POLICY. 283 

" But, again : certain sectional demagogues of the 
South, quite easy to be named, in several of the Southern 
and Southwestern states, have taken most foul and un- 
manly advantage of the peculiar sensitiveness and in- 
flammabihty of the popular mind of our mercurial region 
touching slavery, and have some time since contrived to 
inveigle their over-confiding countrymen in a solemn and 
formal pledge (either by legislative or conventional reso- 
lutions) to go out of the Union in the event of the elec- 
tion of a Eepublican president in November next. Hav- 
ing thus adroitly obtained this perilous committal., these 
same artful and unscrupulous managers immediately set 
themselves to work to get the Southern mind excited and 
infuriated by new questions connected with the institu- 
tion of slavery, intending, after a while, if they could suf- 
ficiently madden the feelings of those to whom they thus 
addressed themselves, to get the South, or at least what 
are known as the cotton states of this region, united fierce- 
ly in some new demand of congressional legislation, which 
being refused, as was confidently expected would be the 
case, they hoped to be able to '•precipitate these same cotton 
states into disunion.'' Especially did they expect this ter- 
rible result to arise from the election of a Eepublican 
president, an event which they confidently believed would 
be brought about by the continued agitation of the slav- 
ery question. Hence the Lecompton controversy. Hence 
the demand, last summer, by the Southern Commercial 
Convention which assembled in the city of Yicksburg, 
for the reopening of the African slave-trade, advocated 
openly and earnestly in that body by ex-Governor Mc- 
Eae, and to some extent abetted also by Senators Davis 



284 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. . 

and Brown. Hence the almost unanimous adoption of a 
resolution by that Convention in favor of the renewal of 
that accursed policy. Hence the formal sanction by the 
same body of that most treasonable and disgraceful speech 
of Mr. Spratt, of South Carolina, in which he openly de- 
clared, in express terms, that the ' time had come for the 
South to take an aggressive attitude,'. and unblushingly 
boasted that Southern juries would never convict any 
violator of the law, however manifestly proved to be 
guilty before them. Hence the furious advocacy of this 
damnable policy by some twenty or thirty Southern Dem- 
ocratic presses, mainly in the State of Mississippi. Hence 
the correspondent action of Yancey and others in Ala- 
bama, and their secession comrades in Georgia, South 
Carolina, Florida, and Texas. So soon as it was ascer- 
tained that the Southern States could not be brought into 
hearty co-operation in support of this extravagant de- 
mand, and that, on the contrary, Virginia, Kentucky, Ten- 
nessee, Missouri, North Carolina, and Maryland would 
prove as hostile to it as any of the free states even, then 
a new device was fallen upon, which it was hoped might 
be more successful. Mr. Davis had urged the measure 
of congressional protection, as a member of the United 
States Senate, as an amendment to the compromise enact- 
ments of 1850. It had been repeatedly voted down, and 
some, including him who is now addressing you, had de- 
nounced it warmly as Hlie Wilmot Proviso South.'' Upon 
this very issue, with others, submitted to the people of the 
State of Mississippi in 1851, Mr. Davis had been defeat- 
ed for governor of that gallant state, all the strong cotton- 
growing counties therein, and especially all those located 



INCIPIENT SECESSION MOVEMENTS. 285 

upon the bank of tlie Mississippi Eivcr, from the south- 
ern boundary of Tennessee to the northern boundary of 
Louisiana, including the county of his own residence, 
voting against him. ISTotwithstanding all this, it was re- 
solved to bring forward this protective proposition again. 
Nobody, of course, expected to obtain the protection 
claimed at the hands of Congress. There could not have 
been a human being in the Union mad enough to expect 
it. But the bringing it forward in Southern Legislatures 
and Conventions, and urging it fiercely in Congress, it 
was hoped, would infallibly have one of two effects, and 
perhaps produce both of them : Mr. Douglas, known to 
be an inflexible non-interventionist, would be killed off, 
and the Democratic party would be, in all probability, so 
distracted and divided that the darling scheme of seces- 
sion would at last be accomplished. The movements of 
the secessionists in the United States Senate, and their 
comrades in four or five of the Southern States, are thus 
easily solved. Meanwhile, Mr. Douglas was to be mar- 
tyred in advance, if possible, by a more compendious 
process. The Lecompton issue was to be forced upon 
him ; he was to be simultaneously denounced by the ad- 
ministration presses throughout the South ; an alliance 
even with Eepublicanism was to be set on foot in Illi- 
nois, and Mr. Lincoln, the present Republican candidate 
for the presidenc}^, was to be aided by Mr. Buchanan as 
strongly as possible in his struggle to supplant him. In 
despite of all this, Mr. Douglas was able to triumph. 
What then ? It was resolved to ostracize him in a Dem- 
ocratic caucus of United States senators. Mr. Slidell, the 
President's alter ego and conscience-keeper, just after the 



286 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

result of the Illinois election was ascertained, when he 
passed through the city of Memphis, publicly boasted 
that he intended to bring about the decapitation of Mr. 
Douglas by the very expedient afterward put in exer- 
cise. He had, just a month before, very publicly, in' a 
conversation with me, avowed the interference of the 
President in the Illinois election, and justified it. Well, 
the howstriyig was applied in caucus on the application 
of Mr. Slidell, as he had threatened, this gentleman being 
reported as declaring at the time that he did so on the 
advice and at the solicitation of the President himself. 
Then came the struggle for congressional protection in 
the Senate. Then was displayed to view the monstrous 
scene of some eight or ten presidential aspirants uniting 
their powers for the destruction of one man, merely be- 
cause his superior merits had given him a larger share 
of public confidence than any of them. Then succeeded 
the most magnificent parliamentary triumph of modern 
times, the signal and disgraceful overthrow of all these 
conspirators in the open field of debate. Next came the 
struggle in Charleston; the corrupt and unscrupulous 
use of ofidcial patronage for the defeat of the noble cham- 
pion of non-intervention ; the schemings of secession 
leaders ; the disgraceful treachery of Caleb Cushing, and 
others from the North, in wicked alliance with Southern 
disunionists, and under the seductive influence of prom- 
ised official reward. Then came the disgusting scenes 
in Charleston, the still more disgraceful scenes in Balti- 
more, the ultimate triumph of Douglas and non-interven- 
tion, and the subsequent nomination of Breckenridge and 
Lane by a strange, anomalous assemblage, presumptuous- 



BRECKENRIDGE AND LANE. 287 

ly calling itself a jSTational Democratic Convention, in 
number but little exceeding one third of the whole Con- 
vention, composed mainly and almost exclusively of cor- 
rupt ofB-ce-holding slaves to executive will, notorious and 
rabid secessionists of the Yancey and Jeff Davis school, 
and a small number of worthy delegates from Tennessee 
and other states, egregiously duped by the unscrupulous 
managers with whom they had to deal, and with whose 
noxious companionship I can not doubt they will, in a 
short time, become utterly nauseated. 

" Now I take the ground, and propose to establish be- 
yond doubt, that the nomination of Messrs. Breckenridge 
and Lane is a rank secession scheme ; that they were 
nominated by most of those who voted for them with no 
earthly hope of electing them, but with a view to defeat- 
ing the regular nominees of the Democratic party, Messrs, 
Douglas and Johnson ; that it was confidently expected 
by those who took the lead in this shameful disorganiz- 
ing movement that the secession ticket would withdraw 
enough votes from Douglas to secure the election of Lin- 
coln, and that Lincoln's election would inevitably bring 
about disunion. I charge distinctly that the .platform 
adopted by the Yancey and Davis Convention looks, di- 
rectly and palpably, to secession, as an object to be at- 
tained through the instrumentality of Mr. Lincoln's elec- 
tion, it being perfectly known and understood at the time 
this ticket was nominated that the claim of protection 
woufd infallibly defeat it in every free state, and it being 
also well known at the time that Mr. Yancey and his al- 
lies in the South already were solemnly pledged to unite 
in an act of secession immediately upon Lincoln's elec- 
tion, before even he could be inaugurated. 



288 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

" Mr. President and fellow-citizens, friends and lovers 
of the Union, whether born upon a foreign soil and seek- 
ing the enjoyment of freedom in the natal land of Wash- 
ington, and Jefferson, and Jackson, or drawing your first 
breath in some part of this noble continent, now per- 
chance the last refuge of liberty on earth, I address you 
all as friends and brethren, and compatriots — not in a 
spirit of soul-withering and disciplined partisanship, still 
less in the language of sectional jealousy and strife. It 
has been my hope to speak to you in a tone of ardent and 
elevated patriotism worthy of the noble cause of which I 
am a zealous though feeble champion, worthy of this great 
assemblage of law-abiding, Union-loving, treason-hating 
patriots now assembled in the metropolis of that noble 
state where quietly repose the sacred ashes of a Jackson 
and a Polk. May I breathe no sentiment, utter no word, 
employ no argument, which the venerated patriarch of 
our proud city, whose severe physical indisposition alone 
prevents his presiding over our present deliberations (the 
bosom friend and trusted counselor of the immortal hero 
of the Hermitage for more than sixty years), could not 
conscientiously sanction and approve. We come hither 
to ratify the nominations of Douglas and Johnson for the 
presidency and vice-presidency of the Union, two men of 
approved integrity, of unquestioned patriotism, of high 
abilities, of ample attainments, of enlarged experience in 
public life, who have been deliberately recommended to 
us by more than two thirds of the grand national Con- 
vention which recently assembled in Baltimore. Let me, 
in the most concise manner, specify a few of the chief 
reasons which, in my judgment, should secure to these 



DOUGLAS AS A PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE. 289 

gentlemen our undivided, hearty, and persistent sup- 
port : 

*' 1. They were nominated according to the estabhshcd 
usages of the great party of which they have long been 
distinguished and trusted leaders. 

^'2. They were nominated honestly and fairly, without 
trickery or illicit contrivance of an}^ kind, by more than 
two hundred delegates, unequivocally entitled to repre- 
sent the great mass of Democratic sentiment of this broad 
Union. 

^'8. They were nominated as known opponents of s'ec- 
tionalism^ either in the South or in the North, enemies 
alike of secession and of Black Eepublicanism. 

" 4. They were nominated in opposition to the whole 
mass of executive patronage, openly wielded by a corrupt 
and unscrupulous President, and that profligate band of 
of6.cial janissaries whom he holds in his pay, and who, 
with more than serf-like servility, stand ready to receive 
his commands and execute his behests. 

"5. They were nominated alone by national men and 
men of the highest independence of spirit, there being 
not one secessionist among them, nor one slavish tool of 
power; a few honest and firm-minded men, incumbents 
of Federal of&ce, preferring their country to the enjoy- 
ment of executive favor, having dared to do their duty as 
patriots at the hazard of immediate official decapitation. 

'' 6. Because the Douglas and Johnson ticket consti- 
tutes the only available Democratic ticket now in the 
field, to abandon them is to abandon all hoj)e of Demo- 
cratic success in the present presidential contest; to with- 
draw votes from them is to strengthen Lincoln and in- 

N 



290 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

crease the probability of his election, with all the dire con- 
sequences which will be certain to wait upon that event. 
No man of sense, any where, believes that Breckenridge 
and Lane can carry a single free state. It is admitted, on 
all hands, that the running of Douglas can alone prevent 
Lincoln's carrying every free state in the confederacy. 
Therefore to drive Douglas from the field, if the thing 
were possible, or seriously to weaken him, is to strength- 
en Lincoln, multiply the chances of his success, put South- 
ern institutions in the most serious danger, and bring the 
Union itself into the greatest jeopardy. It is obvious 
that there is no man in the republic who is so strong with 
the mass of the people as Douglas ; no man who has so 
large a share of the public confidence ; no man whose el- 
evation to the presidential station would awaken such in- 
tense and general satisfaction. Every man knows that 
no Democratic presidential candidate identified with all 
the manifest corruptions and multiplied abuses of power 
perpetrated by this most unfortunate administration can 
possibly be elected. No man identified with the schemes 
of the Southern secessionists' can or ought to be made 
President. No man can possibly triumph over Lincoln 
except some individual known to be unflinchingly op- 
posed to the whole scheme of disunion, and equally op- 
posed to a perpetuation of existing ofiicial corruptions. 
The people of the United States know well that the de- 
struction of our institutions is at this moment doubly 
menaced — by violent disruption, and that certain death 
which comes from interior corruption and decay. They 
feel assured that the election of Douglas would save them 
from the experience of both these evils ; he would main- 



DOUGLAS THE PULTENEY OF AMERICA. 291 

tain and preserve the Union, and reform and purify the 
government. Democrats, convinced that reformation is 
imperiously necessary even to the continued existence of 
our present form of government, are anxious that the 
spirit of redemption should spring up in the bosom of 
their own loved and honored party ; that whatever of 
reformation shall take place shall be carried forward and 
regulated by Democratic jyTinciples. They recognize Mr. 
Douglas as the Pulteney of America ; and what the great 
British statesman just mentioned achieved for England a 
little more than a century ago, when, without abandoning 
his party, or calling in question its time-honored princi- 
ples, he attacked the corrupt leader of that very party, 
even while holding the reins of executive power and os- 
tentatiously asserting that every man in England had his 
price^ drove him from the post of prime minister in dis- 
grace, vindicated effectually the principles which he had 
so vilely abased, restored the ancient dignity of the Whig 
cause in England, and paved the way for the introduc- 
tion of those grand measures of national policy which aft- 
erward encircled the names of Chatham, and Burke, and 
Fox, and Erskine with a halo of imperishable glory." 

Before closing this chapter, I shall avail myself of the 
opportunity of doing justice to an eminent individual, 
now, alas! in the tomb, who is alluded to in the above 
extracts in language of most harsh and criminating rep- 
rehension. With the views which I entertained of Wil- 
liam L. Yancey, his political schemes and movements in 
1860 (which I now continue to entertain in 1865 in rela- 
tion to those schemes and movements), I could not have 
done otherwise, as one anxious to preserve the Federal 



292 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

Union, than exert myself to the utmost of my limited in- 
tellectual powers, and still more limited influence, in ward- 
ing off the perils which I conscientiously thought he and 
others in alliance with him were bringing upon the coun- 
try. I feel bound in frankness to declare, though, that 
I do not at all doubt that his conduct, however grossly 
erroneous and pregnant with great and lasting mischief, 
as I certainly deem it to have been, was in all respects 
regulated by a high but perverted sense of duty to that 
section of the Union where he chanced to be born and 
reared, and with the safety and permanent prosperity of 
which his feelings were intensely affiliated. I was a close 
observer of his conduct while a member of the Confeder- 
ate Congress, and I take pleasure in bearing testimony to 
the fact that his course, while laboring to provide for the 
exigencies of a civil war, in the bringing on of which he 
had so prominently participated, was, with very slight 
exceptions scarcely worthy of mention, in happy unison 
with his antecedent professions of devotion to state-rights 
and popular freedom. He resisted with manly and per- 
sistent firmness the insidious and untiring efforts of 
others to concentrate in the hands of Mr. Davis powers, 
the possession of which even for a year or two would in- 
fallibly have resulted in the establishment of a most ap- 
palling despotism; and just at the moment of Mr. Yan- 
cey's lamented decease, he was preparing, at the next en- 
suing session of the Confederate Congress, to institute 
grave and searching investigations^ which would have en- 
forced a terrible responsibility in the high places of gov- 
ernmental rule, and have caused thousands of petty of- 
fenders all over the land to shudder with affright at the 



WM. L. YANCEY — HIS OPPOSITION TO DAVIS. 293 

prospect of being at last held to something like a just of- 
ficial responsibility. He had long since ceased to enter- 
tain respect for Mr. Davis's abilities, either as the mana- 
ger of difficult civic conq.erns, or as the chief controller 
and director of military movements ; and he began, with 
a multitude of others, to fear that, if even the Southern 
struggle for independence should be eventually success- 
ful, a second, and perchance a far bloodier struggle would 
become necessary, in order to drag from the hands of Mr. 
Davis and those associated with him the injudiciously 
vested powers which they were every day so shamefully 
and so unpardonably abusing. It is with a melancholy 
gratification that I now call to mind the last interview I 
had with Mr. Yancey. It was in the hall of the Confed- 
erate House of Representatives, a month or two before 
his demise. He had come in for the purpose of witness- 
ing the last successful struggle made in that body to de- 
feat the re-enactment of the law for the universal suspen- 
sion of the great writ of Liberty, the habeas corpus. The 
contest had just terminated, and the champions of despot- 
ic power had been prostrated on the field of controversy. 
Mr. Yancey approached me with extended hand, congrat- 
ulated me cordially upon the triumph just achieved, and 
said, " Mr. Davis has at last cuffed the two houses of 
Congress into inclepenclence ;'^'' and intimated that he should 
hereafter have more hope for the Confederate cause than 
he had entertained for some months previous. 

William L.Yancey was undoubtedly no ordinary man. 
He possessed an intellect of great native activity and vig- 
or, and he had cultivated his rare natural gifts both with 
assiduity and success. He had but little of imagination, 



294 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

and still less of humor ; but he was clear, methodical, and 
cogent in argument ; always expressed himself in chaste 
and polished language; his readiness and dexterity in 
controversy were astonishing, and his powers of sarcasm 
such as few men besides have possessed. He lacked 
nothing save a happier equipoise of his faculties, a little 
more quietude and sobriety of temper^ a little less of tenaci- 
ty in his own opinions, and a little more of deference for 
the views of others, to have become one of the most ef- 
fective and useful public men that the republic has at any 
time produced. 

Requiescat in pace I 



1861. 295 



CHAPTER XY. 

Movements in the South looking to Secession. — South Carolina takes 
the Lead in the Execution of her long-cherished Scheme. — Adoption 
of the Ordinance of Secession by that State.— Georgia and the other 
Cotton States follow the Lead of South Carolina.— Commendable Ef- 
forts in several of the States of the North to moderate Southern Excite- 
ment and secure the yielding of reasonable Concessions to the slave- 
holding Interests of the South. — Tennessee and the Border States still 
remain firm. — Extraordinary Message of Mr. Buchanan to Congress in 
the Month of December, 1 860, and its unhappy Effect upon puhlic Sen- 
timent. — Furious Debate in both Houses of Congress upon the Ques- 
tions pending at this Crisis. — All Efforts at Compromise prove abor- 
tive. — Unwise and unpatriotic Conduct on the Part of Southern Sena- 
tors and Representatives in vacating their Seats in Congress. 

The loDg-lioped-for opportunity of trying the experi- 
ment of secession was now at last presented. Abraham 
Lincoln had been elevated to the presidency by a strictly 
sectional vote ; and though the fact could not be denied 
that he had been elected in a perfectly constitutional man- 
ner, though he had not received any thing like a majori- 
ty of the whole popular vote, and though he was admit- 
ted on all hands to be a man of excellent practical intel- 
lect, of many amiable qualities in domestic and social 
life, who had never manifested the smallest portion of 
that rancorous sectional malignity which so many were 
now displaying so deplorably on both sides of Mason and 
Dixon's line, yet, no sooner was it ascertained that it was 
almost certain that he would receive a majority of the 



296 SCYLLA AND CilARYBDIS. 

electoral votes of the wliole Union, than steps began to 
be taken for carrying into effect a revolutionary project 
which had engrossed the thoughts and sensibilities of a 
small class of extreme Southern politicians, mainly con- 
fined to the State of South Carolina, for some thirty years 
preceding. The modus operandi of the secession policy, 
as has been already made sufiiciently apparent, was "to 
precipitate the cotton states of the South" into disunion, 
and bring about an early collision with the Federal gov- 
ernment, in the confident hope that whenever it should 
be known in the border states of the South that war had 
been actually commenced, Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, 
Maryland, North Carolina," and Tennessee would be com- 
pelled to unite in the movement, however they might be 
inclined to disapprove it, as well as the motives which 
had prompted it. This supposition was, indeed, not at 
all an unreasonable one, for the states just mentioned 
were to a very large extent possessed of property in 
slaves ; and though the opinion prevailed therein very 
widely that no such solid guarantee for their slavehold- 
ing interests as that afforded by the Federal Constitution 
was at all likely to be conferred by a sectional war, yet 
perceiving, as they would be sure to do, that the relative 
strength of the slaveholding states left in the Union after 
the withdrawal of those of the cotton -growing region 
would be so far lessened as to leave them thereafter an 
easy prey to abolition hostility, it was regarded as next 
to certain that they would in the end feel constrained to 
join any new confederacy which might be set on foot in 
the South having the least prospect of strength and sta- 
bility. 



. MR. YANCEY IN THE NORTH IN I860. 297 

It was strongly suspected by the friends of the Union 
in the South, and had been distinctly charged to be true 
in various forms, while the presidential contest was pend- 
ing, that the followers of the great secession leaders were 
desirous that the Eepublicans should be successful there- 
in, as only in this way would they be supplied with the 
pretext so much desired by many for withdrawing from 
civil associations with the free states of the North ; and it 
is yet well remembered that Mr. Yancey, with that ex- 
traordinary skill as a political manager which distin- 
guished him, had performed a pilgrimage to the North 
early in the summer of 1860 to counteract this very 
charge of desiring Mr. Lincoln's election, so far as the 
same applied to himself, the effect of which he appre- 
hended might be such as to incapacitate him for the ulti- 
mate consummation of his hopes on this subject, unless 
he could succeed in securing to himself an opportunity 
of showing to his confiding partisans that he had really 
exerted himself in the North against the Eepublican 
presidential ticket. With what remarkable adroitness 
he executed this device no one who was a close observer 
of the events of that extraordinary period could have 
failed to observe ; and yet nothing is more certain than 
the fact that the extremists of the South did indirectly co- 
operate, to the foil extent of their power, in bringing 
about the election of Mr. Lincoln, with the views and 
purposes just specified. No one need, therefore, to feel 
the smallest surprise at finding in the pages of Mr. Gree- 
ley's work the following very striking paragraph : 

''From an early stage of the canvass, the Eepublicans 
could not help seeing that they had the potent aid in 

N2 



298 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

their efforts of the good luisJies for their success of at least 
a large proportion of the advocates of Breckenridge and 
Lane. The toasts drunk with most enthusiasm at the 
Fourth of July celebrations throughout South Carolina 
pointed to the probable election of Mr. Lincoln as the 
necessary prelude to movements whereon the hearts of 
all Carolinians were intent. Southern 'fire-eaters' can- 
vassed the Northern States in behalf of Breckenridge 
and Lane, but very much to the satisfaction of the friends 
of Lincoln and Hamlin. The 'fusion' arrangements, 
whereby it was hoped, at all events, to defeat Lincoln, 
were not generally favored by the ' fire-eaters' who vis- 
ited the North, whether intent on politics, business, or 
pleasure ; and, in some instances, those who sought to 
commend themselves to the favor of their Southern pa- 
trons or customers by an exhibition of zeal in the ' fusion' 
cause, were quietly told : ' What you are doing looks not 
to the end ive desire; we want Lincohi elected.' In no 
slave state did the supporters of Breckenridge unite in 
any 'fusion' movement whatever; and it was a very 
open secret that the friends of Breckenridge generally — ■ 
at all events throughout the slave states — next to the all 
but impossible success of their own candidate, preferred 
that of the Eepublicans. In the Senate throughout the 
preceding session, at Charleston, at Baltimore, and ever 
since, they had acted precisely as they would have done 
had they pre-eminently desired Mr. Lincoln's success, and 
determined to do their best to secure it." 

So thoroughly matured was the project of secession in 
the minds of Southern extremists in South Carolina, that 
they are known actually to have commenced movements 



SOUTH CAROLINA — GOVERNOU GIST. 299 

looking to this desired end before even the presidential 
election had taken place, and when the result which soon 
ensued was yet but a strong probability. Accordingly 
we find Governor Gist, as early as the 5th of ISTovembcr, 
1860, addressing a message to the South Carolina Legis- 
lature, embodying the following bold and explicit dec- 
larations : 

'' Under ordinary circumstances, your duty could be, 
soon discharged by the election of electors representing 
the choice of the people of the state ; but, in view of the 
threatening aspect of affairs, and the strong probability 
of the election to the presidency of a sectional candidate 
by a party committed to the support of measures which, 
if carried out, will inevitably destroy our equality in the 
Union, and ultimately reduce the Southern States to 
mere provinces of a consolidated despotism, to be gov- 
erned by a fixed majority in Congress hostile to our in- 
stitutions and fatally bent upon our ruin, I would re- 
spectfully suggest that the Legislature remain in session, 
and take such action as will prepare the state for any 
emergency that may arise. 

" That an exposition of the will of the people may be 
obtained on a question involving such momentous con- 
sequences, I would earnestly recommend that, in the 
event of Abraham Lincoln's election to the presidency, 
a Convention of the people of this state be immediately 
called, to consider and determine for themselves the mode 
and measure of redress. My own opinions of what the 
Convention should do are of little moment ; but, believ- 
ing that the time has arrived when every one, however 
humble he may be, should express his opinions in un- 



800 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

mistakable language, I am constrained to say tliat the 
only alternative left, in my j uclgment, is the secession of 
South Carolina from the Federal Union. The indica- 
tions from many of the Southern States justify the con- 
clusion that the secession of South Carolina will be im- 
mediately followed, if not adopted simultaneously by 
them, and ultimately by the entire South. The long- 
desired co-operation of the other states having similar 
institutions, for which so many of our citizens have been 
waiting, seems to be near at hand, and, if we are true to 
ourselves, will soon be realized. The state has, with great 
unanimity, declared that she has the right peaceably to se- 
cede, and no power on earth can rightfully prevent it. 

" If, in the exercise of arbitrary power, and forgetful 
of the lessons of history, the government of the United 
States should attempt coercion, it will become our solemn 
duty to meet force by force ; and whatever may be the 
decision of the Convention, representing the sovereignty 
of the state, and amenable to no earthly tribunal, it shall, 
during the remainder of my administration, be carried 
out to the letter, regardless of any hazard that may sur- 
round its execution. 

"I would also respectfully recommend a thorough re- 
organization of the militia, so as to place the whole mili" 
tary force of the state in a position to be used at the short- 
est notice and with the greatest efiiciency. Every man 
in the state between the ages of eighteen and forty -five 
should be well armed with the most efficient weapons of 
modern warfare, and all the available means of the state 
used for that purpose. 

" In addition to this general preparation, I would rec- 



SENATOR CHESNUT. 801 

ommend that the services of ten thousand volunteers be 
immediately accepted ; that they be organized and drilled 
by officers chosen by themselves, and hold themselves in 
readiness to be called on upon the shortest notice. With 
this preparation for defense, and with all the hallowed 
memories of past achievements, with our love of liberty, 
and hatred of tyranny, and with the knowledge that we 
are contending for the safety of our homes and firesides, 
we can confidently appeal to the Disposer of all human 
events, and safely trust our cause in his keeping." 

Mr. Chesnut, then a United States senator, and whom 
I well remember as an outspoken advocate of secession 
in 1850, being present at the opening of the Legislature, 
is reported to have used language even of a more fervid 
and menacing character. He brought to bear upon a 
large popular assemblage convened in Columbia for the 
purpose of listening to him a very animated harangue, in 
which he is represented to have said that, ''for himself, 
he would unfurl the Palmetto flag, fling it to the breeze, 
and, with the spirit of a brave man, determined to live 
and die as became our glorious ancestors, ring the clarion 
notes of defiance in the ears of an insolent foe." He then 
spoke of the " undoubted right of South Carolina to with- 
draw the powers delegated to the Federal government," 
and said that it " would be its duty, in the event contem- 
plated, to withdraw them." 

One of the most alarming symptoms then exhibited in 
South Carolina was the fact that several of her eminent 
public men, including Mr. Orr and Mr. Boyce, both of 
whom had in former days been set down among the con- 
servatives, were now as eager for revolution as any of 



302 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

those who had been working for it night and day for 
more than twenty years. I desire not to particularize on 
this painful subject to an extent which might now prove 
annoying, and therefore proceed briefly to state that the 
Legislature of South Carolina provided for the assem- 
blage of a state Convention, the members of which were 
to be elected on the 6th of December, while the conven- 
tional body itself was to come together on the 19th of the 
same month; that the Convention did assemble on the 
last-mentioned day, and, after an excited debate of sev- 
eral days' continuance, adopted an Ordinance of Secession 
on the 20th of December. Commissioners were sent with 
a copy of the ordinance to each of the slave states, in or- 
der to quicken co-operative action, and notification was 
duly made as to these events to the Federal government 
in Washington City. 

The next secession movement it was expected would 
come off in the State of Georgia. A Convention for this 
purpose had been already called. It was known that 
Alexander H. Stephens, Herschel Y. Johnson, and oth- 
er public men, of elevated standing and of extended in- 
fluence, would be members of the Convention, and it was 
expected that they would exert themselves to the utmost 
to prevent the imitation by the State of Georgia of the 
rash example which had just been set by South Carolina; 
and it was likewise known that eminent personages from 
the State of South Carolina would attend the Convention 
of Georgia, in order to urge immediate co-operation. 
Under these circumstances, I took it upon myself to per- 
suade the public men of most influence in the city of 
ISTashville, where I was then residing, to send ten or fif- 



SECESSION IN GEORGIA — ALEX. H. STEPHENS. 303 

teen delegates forthwith to Milledgeville, respectfully 
and earnestly to protest against extreme action on the 
part of Georgia, believing as I did that, if this great and 
vastly influential state should add the force of her exam- 
ple to that of South Carolina, all the cotton states would 
promptly follow in the same track, and that afterward it 
would not be possible to prevent Tennessee and the re- 
maining Southern States from being driven into the 
movement. I urged these views for several days most 
zealously, but, I regret to say, without success ; some sup- 
posing that there was no serious danger of the Conven- 
tion of Georgia adopting an Ordinance of Secession, and 
others that there was reason to fear, if we should send 
delegates to Milledgeville, it might result in fatally com- 
promising our own attitude. The manly opposition 
made by Mr. Stephens to the attempt to draw Geo]-- 
gia into the secession maelstrom is well known. This 
want of success is a circumstance which I shall ever de- 
plore as the most unfortunate event of a public nature 
which has occurred within my recollection. Alabama, 
Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas were now soon 
enrolled among the seceded states. Tennessee, North 
Carolina, Virginia, Arkansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Mis- 
souri, and Delaware still stood firm, despite all the efforts 
essayed to shake their constancy. 

It is indeed true, as Mr. Greeley has deliberately re- 
corded, that after the secession ''conspiracy had held 
complete possession of the Southern mind for three 
months, with the Southern members of the cabinet, near- 
ly all the Federal officers, most of the governors and 
other state functionaries, and seven eighths of the promi- 



804 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

nent and active politicians pushing it on, and no force 
exerted against nor in any manner threatening to resist 
it, a majority of the slave states, with two thirds of the 
free population of the entire slaveholding region, was 
openly and positively adverse to it, either because they 
regarded the alleged grievances of the South as exagger- 
ated if not unreal, or because they believed that those 
wrongs would rather be aggravated than cured by dis- 
union." 

The cotton states having seceded from the Union in 
the manner described, great uneasiness became manifest 
among the true patriots of the republic every where, and 
prodigious efforts were made at various places, and in va- 
rious modes, to arrest the coming storm. 

In looking back to this tempestuous and critical pe- 
riod, it is eminently gratifying to observe how multiplied 
were the evidences of a desire to prevent those fearful 
scenes of domestic commotion and violence which seemed 
to be now almost at hand. In the city of Philadelphia, 
on the 13th of December, a large popular assemblage 
was called together at Independence Square, where 
speeches were delivered and resolutions adopted worthy 
even of the illustrious era of '76. The first of the reso- 
lutions referred to pledged "the people of Philadelphia 
to the citizens of the other states that the statute-books 
of Pennsylvania should be carefully searched at the ap- 
proaching session of the Legislature, and that every stat- 
ute, if any such there was, which in the slightest degree 
invaded the constitutional rights of the citizens of a sis- 
ter state, should be at once repealed." The closing reso- 
lution of the meeting declared that ''all denunciations of 



WILLIAM H. SEWARD AND THURLOW WEED. 305 

slavery as existing in the United States, and of citizens 
who held slaves under it, were inconsistent with the 
spirit of brotherhood and kindness which ought to ani- 
mate all who live under and support the Constitution of 
the American Union." Nor was the newspaper press of 
the North inactive in the work of conciliation and com- 
^promise at this very perilous moment. The gentleman 
who had for so many years edited with signal ability 
The Albany Evening Journal (Mr. Thurlow Weed), and 
who was generally understood as presenting, to a consid- 
erable extent, the views of Mr. Seward, brought forward 
at this period a plan oi concessions to the South of a most 
equitable and judicious character, which he subsequently 
vindicated, upon its being assailed by the more rabid 
portion of the Eepublican press, in the most conclusive 
and triumphant manner. Mr. Weed did not hesilate, in 
a bold and explicit manner, to declare, 1st, that there was 
"imminent danger of the dissolution of the Union;" 2d, 
that ''this danger originated in the ambition and cupid- 
ity of men who desired a Southern despotism, and in the 
fanatic zeal of ISTorthern abolitionists," who, he charged, 
sought " the emancipation of slaves regardless of conse- 
quences." He asserted that the "danger could only be 
averted by such moderation and forbearance as will draw 
out, strengthen, and combine the Union sentiment of the 
whole country." He declared, and most truly, that there 
was undoubtedly " a Union sentiment in the South worth 
cherishing ;" and said, in a spirit of wise and statesman- 
like liberality worthy even of Webster himself, in refer- 
ence to this Union sentiment in the South, " It will de- 
velop and expand as fast as the darkness and delusion 



306 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

in relation to the feelings of the North can be dispelled. 
This calls for moderation and forbearance. We do not, 
when our dwelling is in flames, stop to ascertain whether 
it was the work of an incendiary before we extinguish 
the fire. Hence our suggestions of a basis of adjustment, 
without the expectation that they would be accepted in 
terms by either section, but that they might possibly in- 
augurate a movement in that direction. The Union is 
worth preserving ; and, if worth preserving, suggestions 
in its behalf, however crude, will not be contemned. A 
victorious party can afford to be tolerant — not, as our 
friends assume, in the abandonment or abasement of its 
principles or character, but in efforts to correct and dis- 
abuse the minds of those who misunderstand both. 

*' Before a final appeal, before a resort to the 'rough 
frown of war,' we should like to see a convention of the 
people, consisting of delegates appointed by the states. 
After more than seventy years of ' wear and tear,' of col- 
lision and abrasion, it should be no cause of wonder that 
the machinery of government is found weakened, or out 
of repair, or even defective. Nor would it be found un- 
profitable for the North and South, bringing their re- 
spective griefs, claims, and proposed reforms to a com- 
mon arbitrament, to meet, discuss, and determine upon a 
future. 

" It will be said that we have done nothing wrong, and 
have nothing to offer. This, supposing it true, is precise- 
ly the reason why we should both propose and offer what- 
ever may by possibility avert the evils of civil war, and 
prevent the destruction of our hitherto unexampled bless- 
ings of union." 



NEW YORK TRIBUNE ACQUIESCENT IN SECESSION. 307 

Whatever may have been heretofore asserted to the 
contrary, I am prepared to bear witness that these timely 
publications of Mr. Weed had an exceedingly mollifying 
effect upon the general popular mind of the South, and 
especially in the border states, as they were called, in- 
cluding the State of Tennessee, where strong hopes were 
now beginning to be entertained that some wise and mu- 
tually satisfactory scheme of pacification would soon be 
adopted. 

I will here incidentally notice two remarkable an- 
nouncements which were made at this period in two ri- 
val ISTorthern papers, which together have such an extend^ 
ed circulation in the various parts of the republic as it is 
believed no other two journals have ever had. I will not 
undertake to estimate the comibined force of such co-oj)- 
erative declarations among those who were now medi- 
tating disunion, but all sound-thinking men will readily 
admit that it must have been considerable. The New 
York Tribune said : 

'' If the cotton states consider the value of the Union' 
debatable, we maintain their perfect right to discuss it; 
nay, we hold, with Jefferson, to the inalienable right of 
communities to alter or abolish forms of government that 
have become oppressive or injurious; and if the cotton 
states shall decide that they can do better out of the 
Union than in it, we insist on letting them go in peace. 
The right to secede may be a revolutionary one, but it 
exists nevertheless; and we do not see how one party 
has a right to do what another party has a right to pre- 
vent. We must even resist the asserted right of any 
state to remain in the Union and nullify or defy the laws 



308 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

tliereof. To witlidraw from the Union is quite another 
matter; and whenever a considerable section of our Union 
shall deliberately resolve to go out, we shall resist all co- 
ercive measures designed to keep them in. We hope 
never to live in a republic whereof one section is pinned 
to the residue with bayonets." The New York Herald 
had said, on the 11th of November, 

" If, however, Northern fanaticism should triumph over 
us, and the Southern States should exercise their undeni- 
able right to secede from the Union, then the city of New 
York, the river counties, the State of New Jersey, and, 
very likely Connecticut, would separate from those New 
England and Western States, where the black man is put 
upon a pinnacle above the white. New York City is for 
the Union first, and the gallant and chivalrous South aft- 
erward." 

Tennessee and the border states were calmly and 
thoughtfully awaiting the chapter of events, when Con- 
gress convened on the 8d of December, and received that 
extraordinary message of Mr. Buchanan, of which a few 
striking extracts will be here presented. 

"Why is it, then, that discontent now so extensively 
prevails, and the union of the states, which is the source 
of all these blessings, is threatened with destruction? 
The long-continued and intemperate interference of the 
Northern people with the question of slavery in the 
Southern States has at length produced its natural ef- 
fects. The different sections of the Union are now ar- 
rayed against each other; and the time has arrived, so 
much dreaded by the Father of his Country, when hos- 
tile geographical parties have been formed. I have long 



JAMES BUCHANAN ALARMED. 309 

foreseen, and often forewarned my countrymen of the now- 
impending danger. This does not proceed solely from 
the claims on the part of Congress or the territorial Leg- 
islatures to exclude slavery from the territories, nor from 
the efforts of different states to defeat the execution of 
the Fugitive Slave Law. 

"All or any of these evils might have been endured 
by the South without danger to the Union (as others 
have been), in the hope that time and reflection might 
apply the remedy. The immediate peril arises not so 
much from these causes as from the fact that the inces- 
sant and violent agitation of the slavery question through- 
out the North for the last quarter of a century has at 
length produced its malign influence on the slaves, and 
inspired them with vague notions of freedom. Hence a 
sense of security no longer exists ' around the family al- 
taro This feeling of peace at home has given place to 
apprehensions of servile insurrection. Many a matron 
throughout the South retires at night in dread of what 
may befall herself and her children before the morning. 
Should this apprehension of domestic danger, whether 
real or imaginary, extend and intensify itself until it shall 
pervade the masses of the Southern people, then disunion 
will become inevitable. Self preservation is the first law 
of Kature, and has been implanted in the heart of man 
by his Creator for the wisest purpose ; and no political 
union, however fraught with blessings and benefits in all 
other respects, can long continue, if the necessary conse- 
quence be to render the homes and the firesides of near- 
ly half the parties to it habitually and hopelessly insecure. 
Sooner or later the bonds of such a union must be sev- 



310 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

ered. It is my conviction that this fatal period has not 
yet arrived, and my prayer to God is that He would pre- 
serve the Constitution and the Union throughout all gen- 
erations. 

*' What, in the mean time, is the responsibility and true 
position of the executive ? He is bound by solemn oath, 
before God and the country, ' to take care that the laws 
be faithfully executed,' and from this obligation he can 
not be absolved by any human power. But what if the 
performance of this duty, in whole or in part, has been 
rendered impracticable by events over which he could 
have exercised no control? Such, at the present mo- 
ment, is the case throughout the State of South Carolina, 
so far as the laws of the United States to secure the ad- 
ministration of justice by means of the Federal judiciary 
are concerned. All the Federal oflScers within its lim- 
its, through whose agency alone these laws can be car- 
ried into execution, have already resigned. We no lon- 
ger have a district judge, a district attorney, or a marshal 
in South Carolina. In fact, the whole machinery of the 
Federal government necessary for the distribution of 
remedial justice among the people has been demolished, 
and it would be difficult, if not impossible, to replace it. 

" The only acts of Congress on the statute-book bear- 
ing upon this subject are those of the 28th of February, 
1795, and 8d of March, 1807. These authorize the Pres- 
ident, after he shall have ascertained that the marshal, 
with his^osse comiiatus, is unable to execute civil or crim- 
inal process in any particular case, to call out the militia, 
and employ the army and navy to aid him in performing 
this service, having first, by proclamation, commanded 



MR. BUCHANAN OPPOSED TO COERCION. 311 

the insurgents to * disperse, and retire peaceably to tlieir 
respective abodes "within a limited time.' This duty can 
not by possibility be performed in a state where no judi- 
cial authority exists to issue process, and where there is 
no marshal to execute it, and where, even if there were 
such an officer, the entire population would constitute 
one solid combination to resist him." 

But the questio questionum is thus pointedly and clear- 
ly propounded by Mr. Buchanan in his message, thus : 

"The question, fairly stated, is. Has the Constitution 
delegated to Congress the power to coerce into submis- 
sion a state which is attemjDting to withdraw, or has act- 
ually withdrawn, from the confederacy ? If answered 
in the affirmative, it must be on the principle that the 
power has been conferred upon Congress to declare and 
to make war against a state. After much serious reflec- 
tion, I have arrived at the conclusion that no such power 
has been delegated to Congress or to any other depart- 
ment of the Federal government. It is manifest, upon 
an inspection of the Constitution, that this is not among 
the specific and enumerated powers granted to Congress, 
and it is equally apparent that its exercise is not ' neces- 
sary and proper for carrying into execution' any one of 
these powers." 

The message of the President was referred to a special 
committee in the House of Eepresentatives on the mo- 
tion of Mr. A. E. Boteler, of Virginia, at the head of 
which was placed Mr. Thomas Corwin, of Ohio ; but even 
while these efforts at pacification were proceeding in the 
House of Eepresentatives,, a stormy debate was in prog- 
ress in the Senate, of which the following extracts may 



812 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

serve to show the wild and disorganizing spirit now prev- 
alent in that body. Mr. Clingman, of North Carohna, 
said: 

" They want to get up a free debate, as the senator 
from New York (Mr. Seward) expressed it in one of his 
speeches. But a senator from Texas told me the other 
day that a great tnaiiy of these free debaters ivere hanging 
from the trees of that country (Texas). I have no doubt 
they would run off a great many slaves from the border 
states, so as to make them free states ; and then, sir, 
when the overt act was struck, we should have a hard 
struggle. I say, therefore, that our policy is not to let 
this thing continue. That, I think, is the opinion of North 
Carolina. I think the party for immediate secession is 
gaining ground rapidly. It is idle for men to shut their 
eyes to consequences like this, if any thing can be done 
to avert the evil while we have power to do it." 

Mr. Iverson, of Georgia, said : 

"Gentlemen speak of concession — of the repeal of the 
Personal Liberty Bills. Eepeal them all to-morrow, and 
you can not stop this revolution. It is not the liberty 
laws, but the mob law, which the South fears. They do 
not dread these overt acts ; for, without the power of the 
Federal government, by force, under Eepublican rule, 
their institution would not last ten years, and they know 
it. They intend to go out of this Union, and he believed 
this. Before the 4th of March, five states will have de- 
clared their independence, and he was satisfied that three 
other states would follow as soon as the action of their 
people can be had. Arkansas will call her Convention, 
and Louisiana will follow. And, though there is a clog 



SECESSIONISM AND UNIONISM IN CONFLICT. 813 

in the way in. the ' lone star' of Texas in the person of 
her governor, who will not consent to call the Legislature, 
yet the public sentiment is so strong that even her gov- 
ernor may be overridden ; and, if he will not yield to that 
public sentiment, some Texan Brutus may arise to rid his 
country of this old, hoar-y -headed traitor. (Great sensation.) 
There has been a good deal of vaporing and threatening, 
but they came from the last men who would carry out 
their threats. Men talk about their eighteen millions; 
but we hear a few days afterward of these same men be- 
ing switched in the face, and they tremble like a sheep- 
stealing dog. There will be no war. The North, gov- 
erned by such far-seeing statesmen as the senator from 
New York (Mr. Seward), will see the futility of this. In 
less than twelve months a Southern Confederacy will be 
formed, and it will be the most successful government on 
earth. The Southern States, thus banded together, will 
be able to resist any force in the world. We do not ex- 
pect war, but we will be prepared for it; and we are not 
a feeble race of Mexicans either." 

The venerable John J. Crittenden and others spoke 
earnestly in favor of conciliation and peace ; while A. G. 
Brown, of Mississippi, and Mr. Wigfall, of Texas, and oth- 
ers from the South, poured forth most heated and violent 
harangues in favor of extreme measures. 

I shall not undertake to describe all the various- prop- 
ositions in either house of Congress, emanating alike 
from Northern and Southern members, looking to the ad- 
justment of the pending issues. More unamiable, more 
wordy and profitless discussions, have seldom occurred 
in any part of the world, nor will future generations be 

O 



814 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

very strongly tempted to do more than glance over them 
in the most cursory manner; though there were then 
undoubtedly a small number of individuals, both in the 
Senate and House of Eepresentatives, of whose wise and 
noble conduct at this crisis the future historian will be 
pleased to make honorable mention. 

There are one or two observations which I will here 
offer as the result of much meditation, and a most impar- 
tial examinaflon of disputed facts and conflicting state- 
ments. 

1. It would have been quite easy for the Southern 
members of the Thirty -fifth Congress, had they come to 
Washington in the true compromising and conciliatory 
spirit, to have obtained such an adjustment of all the sec- 
tional issues then pending as would have been altogether 
in keeping with Southern honor, and preservative of 
Southern slaveholding rights. 

2. The Democratic party having by recent elections 
secured a majority of votes in both houses of Congress, 
there was not even a possibility of slaveholding rights 
being subjected to serious detriment, had Southern sen- 
ators and representatives been alike wise in guarding 
and protecting the interests of their constituents, and 
anxious to perform their duty faithfully to the whole 
republic. 

8. There were several distinct legislative propositions 
brought forward by JSTorthern members either of one 
house or the other, the acceptance of any one of which 
by the South would at once have terminated all contro- 
versy. 

4. Mr. Crittenden's resolutions of compromise could. 



OBSERVATIONS. 315 

doubtless, have been obtained, but for the fact that certain 
Southern senators, five in number (evidently by precon- 
cert), when the motion to substitute the two resolutions 
of Mr. Clarke in lieu of them was voted upon, refused to 
vote at all ; when, had they voted, as they ought to have 
done, Mr. Clarke's resolutions would have been defeated 
by a vote of 28 to 25, and Mr Crittenden's have been 
afterward adopted. 

5. When the last test-vote upon Clarke's substitute 
was taken in the Senate just before the session termin- 
ated, Crittenden's resolutions of compromise were defeat- 
ed only by a vote of 20 to 19, a number of the Southern 
senators having, meanwhile, with equal want of true wis- 
dom and o^ practical fidelity to the South, resigned their 
seats in Congress and returned to their own homes, to 
aid in consummating the work of secession then in such 
active progress. 

6. The following proposition offered by Mr. Seward in 
the senatorial committee of 13, had it been accepted in 
behalf of the South, and incorporated into the Federal 
Constitution, would have given substantial security to the 
slaveholding rights of the South : " No amendment shall 
be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give 
to Congress any power to abolish or interfere in any 
state with the domestic institutions thereof, including that 
of persons held to service or labor by the laws of said 
state." To this proposition, strange to say (as is now 
well known), Mr. Davis, of Mississippi, and Mr. Toombs, 
of Georgia, refused to yield their support in said com- 
mittee. 

7. The resolutions reported to the House of Kepresent- 



816 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

atives by the grand committee of that body, and sustain- 
ed in the house in which they originated, as they would 
doubtless have been in the Senate, had Southern senators 
been at their posts, and ready and willing to do their 
duty, would have given as much security to the slave- 
holding rights of the South as could in reason have been 
demanded. 

8. The joint resolve reported by the grand committee 
of the House for the amendment of the Federal Constitu- 
tion, which passed both houses, and which, on its ratifi- 
cation by a sufficient number of states, would have be- 
come part of the supreme law of the land, and have pre- 
cluded forever all interference with slaveholding inter- 
ests in any state not consenting thereto, was indignantly 
rejected by excited Southern senators, who preferred in- 
curring all the perils of disunion to accepting any of the 
new securities now tendered to theni. 

So Southern secession senators and representatives, 
abandoning their seats in the two houses of Congress, 
and thus leaving their Eepublican adversaries in control 
of those bodies, and of all the resources and power of 
this gigantic republic, hurried on toward Montgomery, 
Alabama, where, in the course of a few weeks of deliber- 
ation, loitli closed doors, they agreed upon and promulga- 
ted to the world the most ill-digested, incongruous, and 
utterly impracticable Constitution of government that 
the "rash dexterity" of visionary theorists has ever been 
able to eliminate, under the nominal guidance and con- 
' trol of which a new confederacy was to have its confused 
and anomalous action; an unnatural and bloody civil 
war was to be commeiiced and prosecuted; state-rights 



MADNESS IN HIGH PLACES. 817 

and popular freedom were to be speedily overthrown ; 
sncli gross mismanagement, both of civil and military af- 
fairs, was to be practiced by a vain, prejudiced, and in- 
competent executive chief as the world had never before 
witnessed; under the authority of which government 
free-born American citizens were to be cruelly hunted 
down, plunged into filthy prison-houses, and even de- 
prived in some instances of life itself, for daring to enter- 
tain and express Union sentiments, and to maintain a 
quiet and peaceable, but a stubborn and inflexible loyal- 
ty to the government of their fathers ; under which gov- 
ernment all rights of person and property were to be set 
at naught and trampled under foot, and even the boasted 
right oi peaceable state secession to be formally and delib- 
erately denied ; and the long - venerated slaveholding 
rio-hts, for the defense and maintenance of which this un- 
wise and wasting war had been projected, were, in the 
fourth year of that very war, to be, upon the ground of 
military necessity, declared by a dogmatical executive re- 
script, subject to be violated, and even abrogated, at the 
pleasure of the great central agency in Eichmond, which 
no longer held itself responsible to either God or man for 
its of&cial acts. 



318 SCYLLA AND CHAllYBDIS. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Speculative Views as to the self-defensive Powers of all Governments, 
and of the Government of the United States in particular. — View of 
the Circumstances existing, so far as the State of Tennessee is con- 
cerned, in the Outset of the War, and Vindication of the Conduct of 
that State. — View of the Condition of Things existing in Washington 
in particular, and of the non-action Policy of Mr. Buchanan. — Notice 
of this Gentleman's late Defense of himself. — View of Mr. Lincoln's 
moderate and patriotic Conduct after his Election, and Notice of 
Speeches made by him at Indianapolis, Pittsburg, and Philadelphia. — 
Mr. Lincoln's Liaugural Speech, arid commendatory Remarks there- 
upon. — Admirably patriotic Speech of Mr. Alexander H. Stephens, of 
Georgia, demonstrating the gross Impolicy of Secession. — Some Allu- 
sions to the early Movements of the War, and a short Discussion of the 
Monroe Doctrine. — Enforcement of that Doctrine the true Means of re- 
storing the national Unity and Concord. 

It would seem almost impossible to state a proposition 
more axiomatic in its character than the following one: 
Every government, being framed with a view to perpetu- 
ity, must needs possess the power of defending its own 
existence and all its essential rights, as well against dan- 
gers from ivitJiout as' from perils which disclose them- 
selves in the bosom of the body politic. And this self- 
evident proposition would seem to include, by necessary 
implication, another, viz. : That self-preservation, being 
the general law of Nature, and applicable alike to all con- 
ventional associations as to all living creatures in their 
original character, whenever it shall happen, amid the 
complex and critical emergencies which it is in the pow- 



A LEAGUE AND A GOVERNMENT. 819 

er of a long-continuing war to engender, to have become 
plainly necessary to resort to the use of expedients the 
need of which the most long-sighted and clear-visioned 
lawgiver could scarcely be supposed to have specially 
anticipated, all such expedients must be regarded as right- 
fully subject to be employed. The quality which chiefly 
distinguished the Constitution framed by our fathers in 
1788 from the Articles of Confederation which it super- 
seded, is, that whereas the power of the latter could only 
operate on states^ as integral members of the confederative 
association, that of the former was intended, on the con- 
trary, to act on individual citizens of those states. These 
states, after the essential change in their character and at- 
tributes which had been then wrought, were no longer 
entitled to recognize themselves as the sovereign mem- 
bers of a league, but as existing, though still retaining 
their corporate capacity, in a condition in which they 
were bound to do fealty and exercise true homage, in 
many interesting respects, to that which, by solemn con- 
ventional arrangement, had been entitled to claim respect 
and obedience as a government of supereminent authority. 
The power to constrain individual citizens, whether 
few or many, who, enjoying the protection of the govern- 
ment, are bound to exercise toward this grand represent- 
ative of the whole nation such a loyal and effective obe- 
dience as the organic law itself contemplates, is by no 
means inconsistent with the continued existence of the 
reserved rights of the states and people thereof, the due 
preservation and maintenance of which is, indeed, one of 
the most sacred duties of the government established by 
alljor the safety and liberty of all. Those who persist in 



820 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

recognizing the old confederative compact as continuing 
to survive, and who hold on, in spite of all the lights of 
history and all the force of argument, to the monstrous 
doctrine of secession, may well feel justified in denying 
to the government at present in operation authority to 
enforce the duty of obedience within the confines of the 
individual states, in opposition to acts of the local govern- 
ments adopted for the express purjDOse of nullifying the 
ties of allegiance existing at the time of the framing of 
such acts between those very citizens and the govern- 
ment whose various forms of legislative action have been 
alone declared, by the solemn organic instrument to 
which all owe the most profound respect, to constitute 
^^tlie swpreme laio of the land^ Since Mr. Webster's cele- 
brated replies to Mr. Hayne and Mr. Calhoun, more than 
thirty years ago, and the emanation of General Jackson's 
world-famous proclamation, few, if any, except the open 
supporters of the absurd and untenable theory of abso- 
lute state sovereignty, have undertaken to dispute the 
right of the Federal government to compel all within the 
scope of its authority to bow in unresisting submission 
to its lawful behests. 

It does not, by any means, follow necessarily, from 
this view of the subject, that it was the duty of Mr. Bu- 
chanan, and of the Congress to whom his last annual 
message was addressed, to wage war upon the seceding 
states so soon as any one or more of them had proclaimed 
their connection with the Federal government at an end. 
Happily for the comfort and happiness of the inhabitants 
of earth, the illimitable power of the Deity is not always 
inclined to reveal itself, for the punishment of the err- 



ANDREW JOHNSON'S SOUND CONSTITUTIONAL VIEWS. 821 

ing^ untempered with the gentler attributes which belong- 
to his beneficent nature ; and, at the period in American 
history which we are now reviewing, there were most 
weighty considerations which, in my judgment, most 
fully justified those then in power in the exercise of a 
moderation and forbearance which President Lincoln and 
his newly-appointed cabinet were, in the spring of 1861, 
extremely desirous of effectively employing. 

The personage now occupying the high position of 
President of the United States, and whose commendable 
efforts to restore harmony and kindly feeling among the 
thirty millions who constitute this great nation, have se- 
cured for him already the gratitude of all who love free- 
dom and abhor oppression, did, in my ophiion, declare 
the true doctrine in regard to the relative powers belong- 
ing to the associated departments of our system of gov- 
ernment on the memorable occasion when he exerted 
himself so nobly to check, in its early developments, the 
ambitious and lawless project of breaking up forever 
this sublime consociation of prosperous and happy com- 
monwealths. I shall here take the liberty of suggesting 
that those who attach serious blame to the conduct of 
the good people of Tennessee at this period, where the 
doctrine of secession was in fact never ratified, and where 
all that was done, in the first instance, was simply to put 
the state in an attitude of defense against dangers supposed 
at the time to be imminent, would do well to take into 
consideration the theoretical notions at that time ex- 
pounded by President Buchanan himself, and, still more 
elaborately, by his attorney general, Mr. Black. ISTor 
should it be forgotten by those in whose hearts the dis- 

O 2 



822 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

position to practice justice is faithfully cherished, that the 
people of this august commonwealth had voted down by 
an overwhelming vote, in the month of February, 1861, 
the proposition to call into existence a State Convention 
for the simple purpose of peaceably considering existing 
dangers and grievances ; and that, while the proposition 
to hold such a Convention at all was most decidedly 
negatived, it is an ascertained fact that, had the proposed 
Convention been even allowed to assemble, a very large 
majority of its members would have utterly repudiated 
all hostile movements against the Federal government. 
It is but justice, too, to an intelligent, gallant, and truly 
patriotic people, to bear in remembrance the fact that 
Tennessee resisted all attempts to draw her into a disloy- 
al and rebellious attitude until the various attempts at 
compromise in Washington City had all signally failed ; 
until the exciting passage of arms at Fort Sumter had 
taken place ; until President Lincoln's proclamation call- 
ing out seventy-five thousand troops had emanated ; un- 
til the suggestive and encouraging declarations of certain 
Northern newspapers, and the still more encouraging 
and persuasive declarations of certain influential public 
men of the free states, had gained general circulation ; 
and until the time-honored and conservative States of 
Virginia and North Carolina had both resolved upon 
uniting their destiny with that of the original seceding 
states ; and that, at last, no formal act of secession was 
committed, but a simple military and civil league entered 
into. 

For myself, while I willingly do homage to the supe- 
rior firmness and constancy of others, and though I am 



VINDICATION OF TENNESSEE. 323 

not at all confident of receiving much allowance at the 
hands of the present excited generation for an error of 
judgment in agreeing, under any circumstances, to take 
part in a war so unnatural and impolitic, yet I am not ' 
without a hope, however faintly entertained that hope > 
may be, that, in future ages, those of us who continued 
to the last to exercise moderation and forbearance, and 
who struggled in every practicable way to mollify the 
unavoidable acerbities of a state of armed collision, may 
not be regarded as altogether unpardonable. 

• Let us now take a calm and dispassionate retrospect of 
the events which had occurred in Washington City be- 
tween the day of Mr. Lincoln's inauguration and the open- 
ing scenes of the war. President Buchanan had done 
nothing to stay the march of rebellion, or to show that 
he regarded the Federal Union as even capable of being 
successfully defended. In his recently published vindi- 
cation he attempts to cast the discredit of his inefficiency 
upon the two houses of Congress. I have read with at- 
tention his elaborate essay prepared for this purpose, and 
I have not neglected the reading of other publications on 
the same vexed subject which have made their appear- 
ance of late. I have, as I think, tolerably clear views as 
to this whole affair, with which I shall not, on the present 
occasion, disturb the public mind. In reference to the co- 
temporaneous action of President Lincoln, I confess that 
I have a very different opinion from that which I enter- 
tained four years ago and very freely expressed. I am 
not at all ashamed to acknowledge that I regard his 
whole conduct, after he had become the recipient of the 
electoral vote which entitled him to claim the presidential 



824 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

authority, as singularly marked witli moderation, elevated 
patriotism, and true practical wisdom. In his speech at 
Indianapolis, the first of many which he delivered on his 
way to Washington City, he used language much miscon- 
strued and denounced at the time ; but who at present 
would seriously censure him for saying, " What, then, is 
coercion f „what is invasion f Would the marching of an 
army into South Carolina, without the consent of her peo- 
ple and with hostile intent toward them, be invasion? I 
certainly think that it would be invasion, and coercion 
also, if South Carolinians were forced to submit. But if the 
United States should merely hold and retake her own forts and 
other property^ and collect the duties on foreign importations^ 
or even loithhold the mails from places ivhere they luere ha- 
hitually violated^ loould any or all these things he invasion or 
coercionV Surely every man now whose reasoning fac- 
ulties are not obscured either by passion or prejudice 
would be willing to confess that in this specification of 
acts Mr. Lincoln has only defined with great precision 
and clearness, but in kind and civil language, his own 
sworn duties as president under the Constitution. It is 
now -pleasant, and even soothing to our sensibilities, to 
read a few of the characteristic sentences that he uttered 
at Pittsburg, where he said, '' I repeat now, there is no 
crisis except such a one as may be gotten up at any time 
by turbulent men, aided by designing politicians. My 
advice to them, under the circumstances, is to keep cool. 
If the great American people keep their temper on both 
sides of the line, the trouble will come to an end, and the 
question which now distracts the country be settled, just 
as surely as all other difficulties of a like character which 



MODERATION OP MR. LINCOLN. 325 

have originated in this government have been adjusted. 
Let the people on both sides keep their self-possession, 
and just as other clouds have cleared away in due time, 
so will this great nation continue to prosper as hereto- 
fore." At Philadelphia he concluded a modest and im.- 
pressive harangue, at the raising of the United States flag 
over Independence Hall, thus touchinglj: "Now, in my 
view of the present aspect of affairs, there need be no 
bloodshed or war. There is no necessity for it. I am 
not in favor of such a course ; and I may say, and in ad- 
vance, that there ivill be no bloodshed, unless it be forced 
upon the government, and then it will be forced to act in 
self-defense." 

Those of the South who will now examine with a calm 
attention the inaugural address of President Lincoln, will 
not be much inclined to subject it to all the censures 
heretofore bestowed on it. Posterity will, I feel assured, 
recognize it as a most felicitous specimen of clear, un- 
adorned, and idiomatic English, concise, nervous, and 
pointed, and breathing throughout a spirit of pure and 
disinterested patriotism, and a truly Christian moderation 
and forbearance toward his erring and excited fellow- 
countrymen of the slaveholding region, while indicating 
the most painful anticipations of those coming evils from 
which no one can doubt his anxiety to shield the repub- 
lic, if it should be found possible to do so consistently 
with the higb official duties which he was about to as- 
sume. Almost in the very commencement of his speech 
he said, " Apprehension seems to exist among the people 
of the Southern States that, by the accession of a Eepub- 
lican administration, their property, and their peace and 



826 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

personal security, will be endangered. There has never 
been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. In- 
deed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the 
while existed, and been open to their inspection. It is 
found in nearly all the published speeches of him who 
now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those 
speeches when I declare that ' / have no ]jurpose^ directly 
or indirectly^ to interfere with the institution of slavery in the 
states where it exists.'' I believe I have no lawful right to 
do so, and I have no intention to do so. Those who nom- 
inated and elected me did so with^his and many similar 
declarations, and had never recantedTTherm Moreover, 
they placed in the platform, for my acceptance, and as a 
law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic res- 
olution which I now read : ' Resolved^ That the mainte- 
nance inviolate of the rights of the states, and especially 
the right of each state to order and control its own do- 
mestic institutions according to its judgment exclusively, 
is essential to that balance of power on which the perfec- 
tion and endurance of our political fabric depend ; and 
we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the 
soil of any state or Territory, no matter under what pre- 
text, as the greatest of crimes.' 
' '' I now reiterate these sentiments, and, in doing so, I 
only press upon the public attention the most conclusive 
evidence of which the case is susceptible, that the proper- 
ty, peace, and security of no section are to be in anywise 
endangered by the now incoming administration.' I add, 
too, that all the protection which, consistently with the 
Constitution and the laws, can be given, will be cheer- 
fully given to all the states, when lawfully demanded. 



-^ 



LINCOLN A MAINTAINER OF THE LAWS. 327 

for whatever cause, as cheerfully to one section as to 
another." 

So much for non-interference with slavery in the states. 
Let us now see what he says in the inaugural touching- 
fugitives from service. On this head he is indeed most 
emphatic. After citing the clause of the Federal Consti- 
tution relating to this matter, he comes squarely up and 
says, "It is scarcely questioned that this provision was 
intended by those who made it for the reclaiming of what 
we Q^ fugitive slaves^ and the intention of the lawgiver is 
the law. All members of Congress swear their support 
to the whole Constitution — to this as well as any other. 
To the proposition, then, that slaves, whose cases come 
within the terms of this clause, ' shall be delivered up,' 
their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they would make 
the effort in good temper, could they not, with a nearly 
equal unanimity, frame and pass a law by means of whicli 
to keep good that unanimous oath?" After kindly and 
respectfully suggesting some amendment in the existing 
law on this subject, so as to make its operation less rig- 
orous, and thus to secure its more effective operation, he 
says: 

" I take the official oath to-day with no mental reserva- 
tions, and with no purpose to construe the Constitution 
or laws by any hypercritical rules ; and, while I do not 
choose now to specify particular acts of Congress as prop- 
er to be enforced,! do suggest that it will be much safer 
for all, both in of&cial and private stations, to conform to 
and abide by all those acts which stand unrepealed, than 
to violate any ofthem^ trusting to final impunity in having 
them held to he unconstiiutionaV 



328 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

After discussing in a very striking manner the mooted 
question of secession, and declaring, in firm but courteous 
language, his determination to maintain the constitutional 
powers of the government against all attempts to subvert 
them, he adds : " I trust this will not be regarded as a 
menace, but only as a declared purpose of the Union that 
it will constitutionally defend and maintain itself. In 
doing this, there need be no bloodshed or violence, and 
there shall be none, unless it is forced upon the national 
authority." 

Again returning to the discussion of the right of a sin- 
gle state, or less than a constitutional majority, to disrupt 
the government or withdraw from the compact of union, 
and declaring his own preference for the conventional 
mode of amending the Constitution, he takes particular 
pains to state his assent to the constitutional amendment 
which had just passed Congress, in these words: ''I un- 
derstand that a proposed amendment to the Constitution 
(which amendment, however, I have not seen) has passed 
Congress, to the effect that the Federal government shall 
never interfere with the domestic institutions of the states, 
including that of persons held to service. To avoid mis- 
construction of what I have said, I depart from my pur- 
pose not to speak of particular amendments, so far as to 
say that, holding such a provision to be now implied con- 
stitutional laiOj I have no objection to making it express and 
irrevocable.^'' 

The address closes in the following pathetic and sol- 
emn manner : 

" My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well 
upon this whole subject; nothing valuable can be lost 
by taking time. 



LINCOLN THE APOSTLE OF PEACE. 329 

"If there be an object to hurry any of you in hot 
haste to a step which you would never take dchberately, 
that object will be frustrated by taking time, but no good 
object can be frustrated by it. 

"Such of you as are now dissatisfied still have the old 
Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, the 
laws of your own framing under it, while the new ad- 
ministration will have no immediate power, if it would, 
to change either. 

" If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold 
the right side in the dispute, there is still no single reason 
for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christian- 
ity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet for- 
saken this favored land, are still competent to adjust, in 
the best way, all our present difficulties. 

"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, 
and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. 
The government will not assail you. 

"You can have no conflict without being yourselves 
the aggressors. You can have no oath registered in heav- 
en to destroy the government, while I shall have the 
most solemn one to ' preserve, protect, and defend' it. 

" I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. 
We must not be enemies. Though passion may have 
strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. 

" The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every 
battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and 
hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the 
chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they 
will be, by the better angels of our nature." 

How profoundly gratified will be all men in future 



830 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

times, who may be capable of appreciating truth and rea- 
son, when they learn that this powerful appeal to the 
hearts and understandings of Southern men was hacl^ed 
wad fortified, yea, even anticipated, by the following noble 
utterances of Alexander H. Stephens. 

" The first question that presents itself is, Shall the 
people of the South secede from the Union in conse- 
quence of the election of Mr. Lincoln to the presidency 
of the United States ? My countrymen, I tell you frank- 
ly, candidly, and earnestly, that I do not think that they 
ought. In my judgment, the election of no man, consti- 
tutionally chosen to that high ofi&ce, is sufficient cause for 
any state to separate from the Union ; it ought to stand 
by and aid still in maintaining the Constitution of the 
country. To make a point of resistance to the govern- 
ment, to withdraw from it because a man has been con- 
stitutionally elected, puts us in the wrong. We are 
pledged to maintain the Constitution ; many of us have 
sworn to support it. Can we, therefore, for the mere 
election of a man to the presidency, and that, too, in ac- 
cordance with the prescribed forms of the Constitution, 
make a point of resistance to the government, and, with- 
out becoming the breakers of that sacred instrument our- 
selves, withdraw ourselves from it? Would we not be 
in the wrong? Whatever fate is to befall this country, 
let it never be laid to the charge of the people of the 
South, and especially of the people of Georgia, that we 
were untrue to our national engagements. Let the fault 
and the wrong rest upon others. If all our hopes are 
to be blasted, if' the republic is to go down, let us be 
found to the last moment standing on the deck, with the 



GOOD AND PATRIOTIC MEJT EVERY WHERE AGREE. 331 

Constitution of the United States waving over our heads; 
(Applause.) Let the fanatics of the North break the Con- 
stitution, if such is their fell purpose ; let the responsibil- 
ity be upon them. I shall speak presently more of their 
acts. But let not the South, let us not be the ones to 
commit the aggression. We went into the election with 
this people ; the result was different from what we wish- 
ed, but the election has been constitutionally held. Were 
we to make a point- of resistance to the government, and 
go out of the Union on that account, the record would be 
made up hereafter against us. 

" But, it is said, Mr. Lincoln's policy and principles are 
against the Constitution, and that, if he carries them out, 
it will be destructive of our rights. Let us not anticipate 
a threatened evil. If he violates the Constitution, then 
will come our time to act. Do not let us break it, be- 
cause, forsooth, he may. If he does, that is the time for 
us to strike. (Applause.) I think it would be injudicious 
and unwise to do this sooner. I do not anticipate that 
Mr. Lincoln will do any thing to jeopardize our safety or 
security, whatever may be his spirit to do it ; for he is 
bound by the constitutional checks which are thrown 
around him, which at this time render him powerless to 
do any great mischief This shows the wisdom of our 
system. The President of the United States is no em- 
peror, no dictator ; he is clothed with no absolute power. 
He can do nothing unless he is backed by power in Con- 
gress. The House of Eepresentatives is largely in the 
majority against him. In the Senate he will also be pow- 
erless : there will be a majority of four against him — 
this, after the loss of Bigler, Fitch, and others, by the 



332 SCYLLA AND CIIARYBDIS. 

unfortunate dissensions of the Democratic party in their 
states. Mr. Lincoln can not appoint an officer without 
the consent of the Senate; he can not form a cabinet 
without the same consent. He will be in the condition 
of George III. (the embodiment of Toryism), who had to 
ask the Whigs to appoint his ministers, and was compel- 
led to receive a cabinet utterly opposed to his views; 
and so Mr. Lincoln will be compelled to ask of the Sen- 
ate to choose for him a cabinet, if the Democracy of that 
body choose to put him on such terms. He will be com- 
pelled to do this, or let the government stop, if the Na- 
tional Democratic men — for that is their name at the 
North — the conservative men in the Senate, should so 
determine. Then how can Mr. Lincoln obtain a cabinet 
which would aid him, or allow him, to violate the Consti- 
tution ? 

<' Why, then, I say, should we disrupt the bonds of this 
Union, when his hands are tied — when he can do nothing 
against us ? 

" I believe in the power of the people to govern them- 
selves, when wisdom prevails and passion is silent. Look 
at what has already been done by them for their advance- 
ment in all that ennobles man. There is nothing like it 
in the history of the world. Look abroad from one ex- 
tent of the country to the other ; contemplate our great- 
ness ; we are now among the first nations of the earth. 
Shall it, then, be said that our institutions, founded upon 
principles of self-government, are a failure ? 

" Thus far it is a noble example, worthy of imitation. 
The gentleman (Mr. Cobb), the other night, said it had 
proven a failure. A failure in what ? In growth ? Look 



OPENING OF THE WAR. 833 

at our expanse in national power ! Look at our popula- 
tion and increase in all that makes a people great! A 
failure? Why, we are the admiration of the civilized 
worldj and present the brightest hopes of mankind. 

" Some of our public men have failed in their aspira- 
tions, that is true ; and from that comes a great part of 
our troubles. (Prolonged applause.) 

" No, there is no failure of this government yet. We 
have made great advancement under the Constitution, 
and I can not but hope that we shall advance still high- 
er. Let us be true to our cause." 

Occurrences were now soon to take place which all 
true-hearted American citizens must forever deplore, and 
which the friends and supporters of republican freedom 
can never cease most profoundly to lament. The open- 
ing scene of the war has imparted to Charleston, the boast- 
ed commercial emporium of South Carolina, a deathless 
claim to the mournful yet respectful sympathy of all who 
admire manliness, and valor, and skill in arms, and el- 
evated patriotism, and wheresoever the honored names 
of Anderson and Beauregard, and of those who were as- 
sociated with either of these renowned chieftains in the 
memorable affair of the siege and capture of Fort Sum- 
ter shall be printed or enunciated in any of the spoken 
languages of earth. It is not for me to record what was 
done and suffered on either side in the fratricidal contest 
which sectional strife had at last wrought up to the shed- 
ding of American blood upon American soil, and by 
American hands. I shall cheerfully leave to others, to 
whom this grim task may prove grateful, an account of 
the fighting of sanguinary and wasteful battles that never 



334: SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

should have been fought, and the description of victories 
won or of defeats endured, the memory of which will ever 
be, in my judgment, a far fitter subject for painful remem- 
brance and poignant lamentation, than for agreeable rem- 
iniscence and patriotic rejoicing. The rival merits of 
illustrious military commanders on either side whose un- 
happy fate it was to be drawn into sanguinary conflict — 
of Grant and of Lee, of Stonewall Jackson and Lyon, of 
Sherman and Joe Johnston, of Price and Thomas, of Sher- 
idan and Ewell, and a host of bright names besides too 
numerous for recital, it is not probable that I shall ever 
undertake either to compare or portray. Should it hap- 
pen hereafter that such personages as I have mentioned 
shall be associated upon fields of glory opened to them 
by our country's presiding genius upon a foreign soil, 
with commingled energies and blended sympathies, to 
maintain the venerated principles of our fathers; should it 
become needful that all the spotless chivalry of our whole 
vast country — of the North, the South, the East, and 
the West — should go forth to vindicate the honor of re- 
publican institutions in this hemisphere against the usurp- 
ing violence of imperial despotism, and no fitter pen than 
mine can be found to record exploits which will at the 
same time redound to our own country's honor, and lend 
encouragement and inspiration to the oppressed strugglers 
for freedom contending in unequal contest against the ef- 
forts of earth's tyrants to enslave them, then shall I be 
prepared to render such aid as I can for the recounting 
of achievements, the fame of which will be as enduring 
as the mountains of our natal land, and as splendid as 
the unclouded rays of Heaven's grand luminary shining 
down on us from the central point of the firmament. 



BEGINNING OF THE WAB. — LEiiOY T. WALKEK. 835 



CHAPTER XYII. 

Beginning of the War. — Its gross Impolicy. — IMr. Davis and his ofiBcial 
Associates did not comprehend its true Dimensions. — INIr. Davis's sev- 
eral exultant Speeches after having been made President. — Striking 
Declaration made by the Confederate Secretary of War, Leroy Pope 
Walker, at Montgomery, Alabama. — Mr. Lincoln's View of the phys- 
ical Impracticability of Secession. — Philosophic Views of the Effects of 
War in general, and of Civil War in particular. — View of the existing 
Condition of Things as the Eesult of the late War. — Responsible Atti- 
tude of President Johnson, and Duty of all good Citizens to sustain 
him. — Short Explanation of Author's own Attitude in the beginning 
of the War. — The Confederate Provisional Congress. — Its extraordi- 
nary Harmony and Unanimity, and the Causes thereof. — View of the 
permanent Confederate Congress. — Rapid Review of Mrr Davis's Con- 
duct as Executive Chief. — Peace Efforts in the Confederate Congress. 
— Their signal Pailure, and the Causes thereof. — Informal Efforts of 
Author, in Connection with many influential Persons of the South, to 
make Peace in Spite of Mr. Davis, and, if need be, by a Counter-revo- 
lution. — Failure of those Efforts, and probable Causes therefor. — Au- 
thor asks Passport across the Ocean, which is granted him. — Close of 
the War, and Remarks thereupon. 

War was now initiated by the firing upon Fort Sum- 
ter, under orders suddenly received from Mr. Davis's 
Secretary of "War, Mr. Leroy Pope Walker, of Hunts- 
ville, Alabama, whose clear and sonorous tones had been 
heard, only a month or two before, in the goodly city 
of JSTashville (up to that time still a Union-loving city), 
expounding the opening glories of secession. As some 
sprightly and vivacious urchin, who jocosely casts his 
lighted cracker at the heels of the way-side passenger, 



836 SCYLLA AND CHAKYBDIS. 

whom he expects to see startled and affrighted with the 
noise of the unlooked-for explosion, or, to speak a little 
more classically, as the fabled son of Phoebus, who is re- 
ported as mounting the blazing chariot of the sun, auda- 
ciously seizing the reins, and driving the celestial steeds 
amain with furious celerity along the ethereal pathways, 
until the whole heavens were set on fire, so Mr. Davis's 
enterprising war secretary embraced with eagerness the 
opportunity which his august chief had now so unwisely 
afforded to him of plunging his native land, most cause- 
lessly and madly, into a war more wasting and bloody 
than any which this western hemisphere had heretofore 
^experienced. Let us pause for a moment, and consider 
the respective strength of the parties now suddenly ^^pre- 
cipitatecV into conflict. The Federal government in 
Washington City represented at the time the power and 
resources of nearly twenty-five millions of people. For 
the cotton states could alone at that moment be confi- 
dently looked to for co-operative aid ; and, making al- 
lowance for the strength of the Union element existing 
in all the states of the South from the beginning to the 
end of this unhappy contest, and for the African element 
also, which all discerning men foresaw from the com- 
mencement, should the war endure long, would be infal- 
libly wielded against the Southern claim to separate in- 
dependence, no one can suppose that as many as five mil*^ 
lions of people could at any time be found, during the 
four years of terrible suffering through which it has been 
the fate of the unhappy and deluded South to pass (in- 
cluding men, women, and children), whose hearts were 
warmly enlisted in the attempt now making to subvert 



INEQUALITY OF THE STRUGGLE. 837 

the government of our fathers. Besides, the strong- 
willed and resolute men who had been left behind in 
Washington City by the rash and improvident Southern 
senators and representatives, henceforward to wield the 
thunders of state, without serious let or embarrassment 
from any quarter, against those who had resolved to or- 
ganize wild, flaming rebellion in the South, were pos- 
sessed of a considerable body of regular soldiers, a large 
navy, and abundant resources of every kind for the pros- 
ecution of warlike enterprises ; while all the states of the 
Old World were open to them, and ready to send to them 
also such supplies as might be needed, and to transmit 
to them, if these should be desired, millions of willing 
soldiers, who only needed that a friendly invitation 
should be extended to them to fly across the deep, in or- 
der to aid in defending the venerated national emblem 
of our country against all who should dare to menace it 
with dishonor. Surely no historian has ever heretofore 
recited the incidents of a war in which between the con- 
flicting parties there was greater disparity of strength. 
But Mr. Davis and his official associates had no correct 
conception of the true character and dimensions of the 
war into which they had so hastily plunged, as was aft- 
erward frankly confessed in many a lugubrious harangue, 
and in more than one solemn official document. They 
did not believe at first that the conflict would endure for 
a twelve-month, and were even weak enough to calculate 
most confidently upon strong Northern aid^ which it is 
now well known there never was the least probability 
of their receiving ; albeit ex-President Pierce and sev- 
eral others, whose letters to Mr. Davis have recently seen 

P 



338 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

the light, had plied this confiding personage with secret 
promises of support, upon which he built in part his 
hopes of one day wielding an imperial sceptre. As to 
the interposition o^ foreign powers in behalf of the now 
warring states of the South, though many deceitful assur- 
ances were received from abroad at different periods of 
the contest, no man of sound intellect any where now 
supposes that either the French or English governments 
ever seriously thought of embroiling itself in a transat- 
lantic civic feud, the formal enlistment in which would, 
in all probability, bring upon itself swift and assured de- 
struction. Mr. Davis evidently thought far otherwise 
when he said at Jackson, Mississippi, just before leaving 
his own home for the city of Montgomery, "England 
would not allow our great staple to be dammed up with- 
in our present limits; the starvmg thousands in their 
midst would not allow it. We have nothing to appre- 
hend from blockade. But, if they attempt invasion by 
land, we must take the war out of our territory. If war 
must come, it must be upon Northern, and not upon 
Southern soil." Continuing to talk in this menacing 
strain along the road to Montgomery, when he reached 
Stevenson, an important railroad point, he said: ''Your 
border states will gladly come into the Southern confed- 
eracy within sixty days, as lue ivill he their only friends. 
England will recognize us, and a glorious future is be- 
fore us. The grass will grow in the Northern cities, 
where the pavements have been worn off by the tread of 
commerce. We will carry war where it is easy to ad- 
vance — where food for the siuord and torch await our 
armies in the densely-populated cities ; and though they 



MR. DAVIS AS THE MODERN CAMBYSES. 339 

(the enemy) may come and spoil our crops, we can raise 
them as before, while they can not rear the cities which 
took years of industry and millions of money to build." 
It was evidently, in part, under the- inspiration of such 
speeches as these from his executive chief, that the war 
secretary, Mr. Walker, on the night after the storming of 
Fort Sumter, announced that " the Confederate flag would 
soon be seen flying from the top of the Capitol in Wash- 
ington." 

Far more to the point were the sober, practical words 
of Mr. Lincoln, when he. had said, in his inaugural, 

"Physically speaking, we can not separate ; we can not 
remove our respective sections from each other, nor build 
an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife 
may be divorced, and go out of the presence and beyond 
the reach of each other, but the different parts of our 
country can not do this. They can not but remain face 
to face ; and intercourse, either amiable or hostile, must 
continue between them. Is it possible, then, to make that 
intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory after 
separation than before ? Can aliens make treaties easier 
than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more 
faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among 
friends ? Suj^pose you go to war, you can not fight al- 
ways ; and when, after much loss on both sides, and no 
gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical questions 
as to terms of intercourse are again upon you." 

It must ever appear to men at all given to philosophic 
meditation upon the concerns of government, and who 
have made themselves in the least degree familiar with 
great historic examples, exceedingly surprising that the 



8-10 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

secession leaders at this perilous crisis (all of whom pro- . 
fessed a profound regard alike for the corporate rights of 
the states as for general popular freedom) should have 
failed to discover the extreme dangers to both of these 
which a continued state of war must engender. All pro- 
fessed writers on government, from Aristotle down to 
Calhoun, have pointed out these dangers, and some of 
them have expatiated with great force upon the inevita- 
ble tendency of belligerent measures to centralize all civil 
power in a single hand. They have taught us that if the 
state of war be continued too long, nothing but the great- 
est circumspection on the part of those interested in pre- 
serving freedom can prevent the building up of an irre- 
sponsible despotism. And this tendency to centralization 
has, confessedly, always been more observable in such 
wars as are waged by one portion of the citizens of a 
free country against citizens of kindred blood, of the 
same country and lineage, upon the natal soil common 
to them both. It would be easy to specify the effi- 
cient causes of this, and quite as easy to illustrate and 
support the stated proposition by numerous instances in 
point. It is Mr. Webster, I think, who, in some one of 
his majestic orations, likens the action of the government- 
al machine, in times of civil commotion, to the chariot- 
wheels of antiquity, which are described as taking fire 
from the celerity of their own motion. Two such ma- 
chines, in close proximity, igniting from the same cause, 
must each serve, by a natural reciprocation of power, to 
increase the general combustion. It would have been 
scarcely possible to preserve a well-balanced federative 
system either jn the North*' or in the South, while such a 



SECESSION NECESSARILY FATAL TO FREEDOM. 341 

war as that from which we have just so happily escaped, 
was ill fierce and ever-varying progress. Had peaceful 
secession even turned out to be a practicable experiment, 
the danger of constantly-recurring border wars would 
have demanded the location of considerable bodies of de- 
fensive soldiery along the line of territorial separation 
on the one side and on the other of that line, in order to 
guard against hostile incursions, ever possible to occur. 
These military bands would have soon grown into stand- 
ing armies of great and constantly accumulating strength, 
until each of them would, as so often has been the case 
heretofore, have given to the country which should have 
thus fallen under its control an imperial master, or would, 
at least, have decreed the establishment of a government 
far stronger in its frame than that of the republican form 
has ever been heretofore adjudged to be. But a separa- 
tion effected by the sword must have been fraught with 
yet greater |)eril. A long and arduous struggle be- 
tween two segments of the same republic, marked by 
the copious shedding of the blood of valued citizens on 
either side, would necessarily have engendered rancors 
exceedingly difficult to be allayed, even after hostilities 
should have ceased to be prosecuted. These rancors, 
during the season of hostilities, would have been con- 
stantly multiplying and increasing in intensity. The or- 
dinary expedients of war would have become, in the esti- 
mation of the parties struggling for superiority, far too 
gentle and ineffective for the fierce and hellish purposes 
of a wrathful and all-desolating vengeance. The infer- 
nal furies themselves would be called in by mutual and 
trumpet-toned entreaties, to swell the thrice tragic scene 



342 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

of general social ruin. Sicilian vespers^ or Feasts of St. 
Bartholomew^ would have ceased to awaken their accus- 
tomed horror, when confronting such scenes as those to 
which our own loved country was, only a month or two 
since, in danger of falling a prey. A state of things so 
appalling as that described would, of necessity, have de- 
manded that large and latitudinous powers should be 
vested in the executive department of the government, 
wheresoever situated, in order to regulate and hold in 
some little restraint, if possible, all those potent elements 
of mischief In order to prevent universal anarch}^, uni- 
versal butchery, and wide-sweeping crimes of every sort, 
the organization of a despotism would have become a 
fatal necessity. Such vast powers, once trusted in the 
hands of any man less virtuous than Washington himself, 
it would be absurd to expect would be voluntarily sur- 
rendered, and to tear them from so potential a depository 
hj force might perchance be found impossible. 

Is any man incredulous to these suggestions? Be- 
hold!- are we not even now treading upon the cinders of 
a volcanic eruption, which is only just at this moment 
ceasing to emit smoke? Have we not seen, in the very 
war which has but the other day been brought to a close, 
that Mr. Lincoln, the most humane, moderate, and clem- 
ent of men, was compelled^ by circumstances which admit- 
ted of no discretion, to bring into exercise powers which 
he himself frankly and magnanimously acknowledged 
.not to have been derived from the Constitution under 
which he had been called to his high station? Do we 
not now see his firm-nerved, sagacious, and energetic suc- 
cessor, a man as remarkable in his former life as any 



HORRORS OF WAR. 343 

American statesman, either dead or living, for his strict 
and scrupulous regard for the great fundamental princi- 
ples of our system of freedom, battling manfull}^ and per- 
severingly with a vast "sea of troubles," while, on the 
right hand and on the left, blind and infuriated zealots, 
extremists, and impracticables of every noxious cree'd 
under heaven are, with emulous confusion, and with ever- 
toiling malignity, striving to paralyze the arm which is 
being stretched forth over the whole land — over the 
North, the South, the East, and the West, for the purpose 
of effecting a great and universal national deliverance ? 
Are not a few men far to the South presenting even yet 
an un amiable and factious opposition to the reasonable 
requisitions which their only protector on earth has made 
upon them ? And are there not others in the North de- 
nouncing that same personage for not carrying into effect 
all "their hell-born schemes of vengeance and spoliation ? 
And can any one doubt that all these are the natural 
and inevitable products of such a war as that which was 
brought to a close last spring? 

I am aware that some might be inclined to ask why, 
entertaining such views as have been just expressed, the 
writer of these pages consented, four years ago, to occupy 
a seat in the Confederate Congress? I wish it were in my 
power to answer this most natural interrogatory in a 
manner entirely satisfactory even to my own judgment 
and sensibilities. It were but to display a vain and silly 
egotism, to narrate all the influences to which my action 
as a public man was subjected in the early part of this 
most deplorable contest. I shall be content, for the pres- 
ent, to state that the motives which operated upon me 



344 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

were of a nature most peculiar and pressing, a good deal 
out of the ordinary routine of civic duty, anomalous and 
eccentrical^ if any one shall be pleased so to denominate 
them ; and I should greatly prefer to be burdened with 
the largest amount of undeserved reproach to attempting 
the difficult and perhaps impossible task of vindicating 
my own political consistency^ or proving to the excited 
and prejudiced minds of a generation which is fast pass- 
ing away, how, by pursuing the very course which, after 
much and painful hesitation, and under the persuasions 
of men of far higher intellect than my own, I finally con- 
sented to tread, I secured to myself the only chance, m 
the event of certain .exigencies which I then foresaw 
most plainly were more than likely to arise, of aiding, 
to some moderate extent at least, in warding off a portion 
of the evils the whole integral mass of which it had al- 
ready, in the rapid and tumultuous rush of revolutionary 
events, become itopcssible to avert, and of participating, 
according to the measure,.of my ability, alsQ, in the pre- 
vention of results which, even at that period, I could not 
but regard as most alarmingly ybresAacZoi^'ec?. 

Of the action of the Confederate Provisional Congress 
I have but little to say. I have heard that there was a 
good deal of ability in the body, and that there was much 
harmony, also, in its proceedings. The revolutionary 
machine, I should conjecture, had already been given 
most decidedly the centralizing tendency which has been 
/ already described, as it has been often stated in my hear- 
ing, by men who were bound to know all about the mat- 
ter, that Mr. Davis vetoed more bills during the short 
provisional regime than all the presidents of the United 



CONFEDERATE GOVERNMENT. 845 

States put together, from "Washington to Lincoln inclu- 
sive, and that no attempt to pass a single bill over his 
head was ever made. 

In reference to the proceedings of the Confederate gov- 
ernment, after my unhappy and tempestuous connection 
with it was formed, I should have very much to say un- 
der different circumstances than those which now exist, 
all of which may be said hereafter, if it be apparent that 
the public mind is in a condition to profit by the painful 
revelations which it will be in my power to make. But 
President Davis and his cabinet are either in exile or in 
imprisonment; his multitudinous official servitors have 
retired to private life, or are gloomy wanderers in foreign 
lands. Those who, in despite of what a few independent 
and high-spirited men could do to prevent the passage of 
certain baleful measures, succeeded in enacting laws for 
the suspension of the great writ of liberty; for the confis- 
cation, of the estates of all who could not conscientiously 
range themselves in opposition to the flag of their fa- 
thers ; for the forcible conscription of all male citizens ca- 
pable of bearing arms, whether in friendly or hostile re- 
lations to the Confederate cause ; for the forcible impress- 
ment of private property, wheresoever situated, at the dis- 
cretion of men endowed temporarily with military au- 
thority ; for the declaration and enforcement of martial 
law, and a number of acts besides of almost equal enor- 
mity ; those who sustained Mr. Davis in the appoint- 
ment of inefficient and mischievous officials, to the exclu- 
sion of the capable and the virtuous ; who sanctioned the 
impolitic and ungenerous displacement of able and high- 
souled military commanders, in order to make way for 

P2 



346 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

Others whom the army despised, and the citizens at large 
both distrusted and hated — these persons, the valueless 
ephemera of an age over-fertile in inanities^ have nearly 
all disappeared from the jostling chaotic stage whereupon 
they were enacting their parts, and, 

" Like the baseless fabric of a vision, 
Left n'ot a wreck behind." 

As to Mr. Davis, I must say that I regard him mainly 
as the unfortunate victim of dark and dangerous political 
heresies for which he is by no means primarily responsi- 
ble ; a victim, likewise, of the intriguing machinations of 
cunning and unscrupulous managers, whose true charac- 
ter he had never penetrated ; as the dupe of adulation 
and of false promises from abroad which might perchance 
have deceived men far more sagacious than himself; in 
fine, as the almost involuntary instrument of dark and po- 
tential influences generated in the womb oi Revolution^ 
which led him to claim and to exercise powers, the em- 
ployment of which, though utterly subversive of freedom, 
he believed to be indispensable to the successful execu- 
tion of the grand scheme of secession, to which he had 
for so many years devoted the best energies both of his 
soul and his understanding. Far be it from me to wish 
evil to the late President of the Confederate States. He 
has been unfortunate, and I condole with him ; he has 
committed great and grievous errors, and I make all just 
allowance for them. He is unhappy, and I sympathize 
with him. He is in prison, and I pray night and day for 
his enlargement. Though he permitted his heartless Sec- 
retary of War, last winter, to deprive me of my own per- 
sonal liberty, and to retain me in " durance vile" until 



DAVIS'S GROSS MISMANAGEMENT. 847 

discharged on habeas corpus, alone on account of my pre- 
suming to attempt imdfication^ when I found both Con- 
gress and himself bent upon the farther prosecution of a 
war which they had already rendered utterly hopeless, 
yet, so far from feeling resentment or unkindness on this 
account, I can say with truth that, having myself thrice 
suffered the loss of personal liberty within the last twelve 
months, I can, in reference to Mr. Davis's present forlorn 
and suffering condition, painfully and sorrowfully exclaim 
(with a change ol gender only), in the language of Queen 
Dido to ^neas, ^^Non ignarus mali^ miseros succurrere 
disco y 

It will not, I trust, be transcending the limits which I 
have thus prescribed to myself to say that Mr. Davis 
must be inevitably held responsible by the future histo- 
rian for the appointment to places of high civic trust, in- 
cluding the positions in his cabinet, of so large a propor- 
tion of incompetent public functionaries, as well as for 
his obstinate adherence to these individuals after their in- 
ability to perform the duties assigned to them had be- 
come manifest to all save himself; nor will he be easily 
excused for his unjust and illiberal treatment of some of 
the most meritorious Confederate military commanders, 
who had drawn their swords, and enlisted all they had 
of life, and fame, and fortune in behalf of Southern inde- 
pendence. The impolitic tenacity with which he contin- 
ued to bolster up the reputations of such men as Bragg, 
and Pemberton, and Hindman, and a long list of others 
of the same stamp, in opposition to known public senti- 
ment, both in the army and out of it, and to the utter 
sacrifice of all rational hopes of Confederate success, will 



34:8 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

constitute a picture for tlie examination of an unprej- 
udiced posterity alike unprecedented and indefensible. 
Twenty years hence no one will be beard to deny that 
to the direct and unwise interference in great military 
movements on the part of Mr. Davis is to be attributed 
nearly all the principal disasters of the war. In the gross 
mismanagement of the War Department, under the su- 
pervision and control of Mr. Davis himself, may safely be 
charged the calamitous occurrences at Forts Donelson and 
Henry, and at Koanoke Island. The withdrawal by his 
own express order from the Army of Tennessee of nearly 
ten thousand men for the purpose of being transferred to 
the State of Mississippi, just before the battle of Murfrees- 
boro', was undoubtedly the especial cause of the loss of 
that sanguinary field. The order to fight that battle, 
which emanated from Mr. Davis himself, while he was 
yet in the neighborhood of Murfreesboro', and, in case of 
defeat, to fall back at once to the line of the Tennessee, 
was one of the most stupendous blunders of which the 
annals of war have as yet borne testimony, and had the 
effect of eventually losing the great and important State 
of Tennessee to the Confederate cause. The rash order 
afterward given by the same personage, that Longstreet 
and some twenty thousand of the Confederate soldiery 
should be detached from the already enfeebled Army of 
Tennessee, and sent upon an unpromising and profitless 
errand to Knoxville, Tennessee, brought on the disastrous 
result at Missionary Eidge. Mr. Davis's antecedent dis- 
placement of Beauregard from the command of the Army 
of Tennessee, and the substitution of Bragg in his place, 
and the confiding to this last-mentioned of^cer the im- 



BKAGG AND PEMBERTON. 849 

portant invading movement into Kentucky, awakened at 
the time a strong feeling both of surprise and of regret 
in the minds of all men in the least degree capable of 
judging with discernment and accuracy touching the pol- 
icy of such a proceeding ; and when this military favorite 
of the President afterward allowed Buell and his feeble 
and somewhat demoralized forces to pass, almost in sight 
of his lines, on their way to Louisville, where it was 
known that the Federal army could be immediately 
strengthened by recruits to an almost indefinite extent, 
so palpable was this mistake, that there were not want- 
ing men in the Confederate Congress, who were only ci- 
vilians^ to predict with confidence that Bragg, with the 
gallant army that he commanded, would be inevitably 
and speedily driven over the Cumberland Mountains and 
compelled to seek refuge once more in Tennessee. No 
reasonable man has ever doubted that the retention of 
Pemberton at Vicksburg, and the tardiness with which 
General Joseph E. Johnston was sent to aid in the de- 
fense of that city, brought about that memorable Fourth 
of July scene, which is really one of the most curious and 
romantic incidents of the war. The sudden displacement 
of General Joseph E. Johnston from the command of the 
army at Atlanta, the consequent fall of that city, and the 
absurd and unaccountable order issued by Mr. Davis that 
the Confederate army, then the only defense of Alabama, 
of Georgia, and of South Carolina, should be mysterious- 
ly dispatched upon a bootless errand to the city of 
ISTashville, there to endure the most cruel disasters, while 
all the great cotton-growing region to the south was laid 
open to the strong invading force under Sherman, can 



350 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

scarcely be satisfactorily accounted for even on the score 
of judicial blindness. 

By a somewhat singular coincidence, I had just writ- 
ten the preceding sentence, when the elaborate report of 
General Grant, which is at this moment commanding so 
much of the public attention, came to hand. I was natu- 
rally anxious to learn how far the views which I had 
expressed in my place in the Confederate Congress were 
in unison with those of one of the first military command- 
ers of the age. On glancing at that part of the report 
which refers to the conduct of Mr. Davis at this precise 
period, I find the following very striking remarks: "Gen- 
eral Sherman, immediately after the fall of Atlanta, put 
his armies in camp in and about the place, and made all 
preparation for refitting and supplying them for future 
service. The great length of road from Atlanta to Cum- 
berland Eiver, however, which had to be guarded, allow- 
ed the troops but little rest. During this time Jefferson 
Davis made a speech in Macon, Georgia, which was re- 
ported in the papers in the South, and soon became 
known to the whole country, disclosing the plans of the 
enemy, thus- enabling General Sherman fully to meet 
them. He exhibited the weakness of supposing that an 
army that had been beaten and fearfully decimated in a 
vain attempt at the defensive, could successfully under- 
take the offensive against the army that had so often de- 
feated it." 

This same speech of Mr. Davis is one of the most re- 
markable on record in several other respects. In it he 
denounced, in very coarse language, the high-spirited and 
intelligent Governor of Georgia for having (as Mr. Davis, 



MR. DAVIS IN GEORGIA. 351 

it would seem, had been informed) charged him with in- 
tending to abandon Georgia to the mercy of the invadino- 
force, when, at that precise moment, the very scheme of 
abandonment, so emphatically denied, was in a course 
of rapid execution. He assailed, at the same time, the 
valiant Johnston, whom he had recently so unwisely dis- 
placed from the command of the Army of Tennessee in 
language alike unjust and impolitic. I remember well 
that, when the printed copy of this extraordinary ha- 
rangue reached the city of Eichmond, Mr. Davis's earnest 
friends and admirers there were as much shocked by its 
appearance as was the- population of that city generally, 
and it was openly declared by them to b.e a shameful /aZ>- 
rication. Upon Mr. Davis's return to Eichmond, though, 
he having duly acknowledged its genuineness, these same 
friends and admirers, including the conductors of the 
government organ (the Sentinel), fell into ecstasies over 
it, declaring that it was a wise and paternal address of 
the pater jocitrice to his erring children. 

When, in the month of February, 1862, 1 reached the 
city of Eichmond, the condition of Confederate affairs 
was beginning to wear a most gloomy and discouraging 
aspect. The disastrous affair at Fishing Creek had oc- 
curred ; Forts Donelson and Henry had fallen into the 
hands of the Federal forces; General Albert Sidney John- 
son had been forced to abandon Bowling Green, and re- 
treat before the overwhelming Federal force throu^^h 
Tennessee, down to the neighborhood of the northern 
portion of the State of Mississippi ; Eoanoke Island had 
been also attacked and captured, and New Orleans was 
evidently in danger of undergoing the same fate. All 



852 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

these calamities, and a number of other casualties not nec- 
essary to be now specified, had been directly traced to the 
gross incompetency of the Secretary of War, Mr. Judah 
P. Benjamin, who, by-the-by, though, had never been any 
thing more than a mere clerh in the War Department, acting 
uniformly under the direction of his executive chief, Mr. 
Davis. Under these circumstances was Mr. Davis inaug- 
urated as permanent President of the Confederate States. 
It was obvious to me, at a moment's glance, that the Con- 
federate cause was then almost at its last gasp, and that 
unless something was immediately done to buoy it up, 
the hopes of Southern independence, a few months before 
so confidently indulged by some, would be forever extin- 
guished. It is a most remarkable fact, the truth of which 
is indisputable, that neither Mr. Davis nor his Secretary 
of War- had, even up to that time, become satisfied of the 
importance of erecting defenses, either by land or water, 
which might serve to save the city of Eichmond from 
being entered by the forces of the United States, known 
then to be on their way to the Confederate capital. Gov- 
ernor Letcher had endeavored to attract the attention of 
Mr. Davis to this important matter, and had been treated 
on the occasion in a manner most discourteous — Mr. Da- 
vis seeming to regard it as an act of supreme presump- 
tion on the part of this vigilant and discerning function- 
ary to intermeddle with an affair which he, as Confeder- 
ate president, recognized as exclusively within the scope 
of his own jurisdiction. It was obvious to me, as it was 
to all men of discernment with whom I held intercourse 
at the time, that it was utterly impossible for the claim to 
Southern independence to be maintained by arms, unless 



MR. DAVIS'S CABINET. 353 

great and radical reforms in the administration of Con- 
federate affairs could be affected without delay. No sen- 
sible man could for a moment doubt that an immediate 
and pretty general change of cabinet ofl&cers was indis- 
pensable. There were only two of these functionaries 
whose offi.cial qualifications were even respectable — the 
Attorney General, Mr. A¥atts, of Alabama, and the Post- 
master General, Mr. Reagan, of Texas. The Secretary of 
War (Mr. Benjamin), besides his inability to meet the mil- 
itary exigencies which he had been encountering, as well 
as the more serious ones in prospect, was subject to other 
objections, as the incumbent of a high cabinet position, 
of the greatest and most vital character. His reputation 
for integrity had never been good, and of late years it had 
become deeply tarnished by his known participancy in 
schemes of notorious corruption both in the State of 
Louisiana and in "Washington City. The offensive moral 
odor arising from the celebrated Houmas fraud (one of 
the most unblushing and profligate legislative transac- 
tions that had ever disgraced the annals of a free people) 
had affixed such a stigma upon the reputation both of 
Mr. Benjamin and his friend and patron, Mr. John ^ 
Slidell, as it was not possible that any lapse of time could 
entirely efface. It was quite evident that it was not in 
the power of Mr. Davis, or of a thousand such persons, 
to reconcile the unsophisticated popular mind of the 
Sonth to either of these personages ; nor would it have 
been possible, even for Washington himself, to have pre- 
served his own fame unsullied, while apparently yielding 
his unreserved confidence to such notorious dabblers in 
iniquity. At the moment of Mr. Davis's entering upon 



So-i SCYI.LA AND CHARYBDIS. 

his official career as permanent president, it was plain that 
an excellent opportunity was presented to him of correct- 
ing the mistakes which, it was most manifest, he had com- 
mitted in the beginning of his official career as the chief 
executive officer of the Confederate States ; and it was 
confidently hoped by many that this opportunity would 
be promptly embraced by him of calling around him men 
of the highest abilities and of the most unquestioned 
moral worth that the Southern States contained. Be- 
sides, it had in some way happened that Mr. Davis, al- 
ways too much of a me^e party man in the former part 
of his career, had filled a very large number of all the 
official positions in his gift with persons who had voted 
with him in 1860 for Breckenridge and Lane ; and as the 
whole population of the South (that is to sa}^, all who 
had yielded their adhesion to the Confederate cause) had 
voted for him in the presidential election which had just 
terminated, it was regarded as both reasonable and prop- 
er that, in the distribution of official appointments, he 
should show himself altogether superior to ancient party 
prejudices. But such was far from being the case. The 
names of such men as William C. Eives, John Bell, Wil- 
liam A. Graham, and others, when mentioned to him in 
connection with important offices in his gift, are well 
known only to have called forth from him the most 
scornful and derisive responses. Censures imposed upon 
his chosen cabinet advisers he was ever ready to treat as 
a direct insult to himself, and, in fact, as the perpetration 
of a sort of contempt for his own official dignity. The 
truth is, that it was very soon ascertained that his head 
had been completely turned by his sudden elevation to 



FIRST CONGRESSIONAL OPPOSITION. 3o5 

the place whicli he then occupied, and he had become the 
victim of "that weakest weakness, vanity}'* 

At this period, nothing like a manly opposition to Mr. 
Davis's administration in either house of Congress had 
been displayed ; and yet it was most plain that, unless 
some such opposition should soon manifest itself, all for 
which the Southern people were so valiantly struggling 
would be inevitably lost to them, together with all the 
freedom which they had claimed to possess before the 
commencement of the struggle then in progress. I know 
not what other men may suppose it was my duty, as a 
man originally averse to the war, and sincerely anxious 
for an honorable peace, to do under such circumstances 
as I have described ; but I know what I did do. This 
has already been stated by a gentleman who has recent- 
ly given to the public three volumes of a well written 
and interesting historic work, and in language strictly in 
unison with the truth, except that this accomplished 
writer has been far too complimentary to myself, and 
has, as I believe (doubtless unintentionally), failed to do 
full justice to others in the Confederate Congress well 
worthy of praise, both for personal independence and for 
very high ability.* 

* "There was but little opposition in Congress to President Davis ; but 
there was some which took a direction to his cabinet, and this opposition 
was represented by Mr. Foote, of Tennessee — a man of acknowledged 
ability and many virtues of character, who had re-entered upon the polit- 
ical stage after a public life which, however it lacked in the cheap merit 
of partisan consistency, had been adorned by displays of wonderful intel- 
lect and great political genius. Mr. Foote was not a man to be deterred 
from speaking the truth ; his quickness to resentment, and his chivalry, 
which, though somewhat Quixotic, was founded in the most noble and 



356 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

Just about the time that I was laboring most assidu- 
ously to relieve the Department of War of Mr. Benjamin, 
by calling forth, as far as it might be in my power to do 
so, co-operative responses from the people, an occurrence 
took place in social life in Kichmond which had much 
effect, not only upon, the fate of Mr. Benjamin, but which, 
in the sequel, had much influence also upon the course 
of public events. I chanced to be invited to a dinner- 
party, where some twenty of the most prominent mem- 
bers of the two houses of the Confederate Congress were 
congregated, including the Speaker of the House of Eep- 
resentatives, Mr. Orr, of South Carolina, and others of 
equal rank. General Joseph E. Johnston was also an in- 
vited guest. While the banquet was proceeding, Mr. 
Benjamin's gross acts of official misconduct becoming the 
subject of conversation, one of the company turned to 
General Johnston, and inquired whether he thought it 
even loossihle that the Confederate cause could succeed 
with Mr. Benjamin as war minister. To this inquiry. 
General Johnston, after a little pause, emphatically re- 
sponded in the negative. This high authority was imme- 
diately cited in both houses of Congress against Mr. Ben- 
jamin, and was in the end fatal to his hopes of remain- 
ing in the Department of War. Mr. Davis, after defer- 
ring the sending in of his nominations for cabinet ap- 

delicate sense of honor, made those who would have bullied or silenced a 
weaker person stand in awe of him. A man of such temper was not 
likely to stint words in assailing an opponent ; and his sharp declama- 
tions in Congress, his searching comments, and his great powers of sar- 
casm, used upon such men as Mallory, Benjamin, and Huger, were the 
only relief of the dullness of the Congress, and the only historical features 
of its debates." — Pollard's First Year of the War. 



INCOMPETENCY OF DAVIS'S CABINET. 857 

pointmefits, under the permanent Constitution, for nearly 
four weeks, in order to have it in his power to persuade 
the Senate to confirm Mr. Benjamin as Secretary of War 
in the event of his being renominated, ultimately relin- 
quished this object in despair — that body, however ac- 
commodating it was in general to executive fancies, hav- 
ing been found unwilling to participate in the terrible 
responsibility of such an act. Mr. Benjamin was finally 
nominated for the Department of State, and was con- 
firmed, by a very small majority, for that place, where he 
had it in his power, both abroad and at home, to perpe- 
trate more barefaced acts of corruption and profligacy 
than any single individual has ever been known to com- 
mit in the same space of time in any part of Christen- 
dom. I will here remark, in passing, that this frank and 
manly declaration of General Johnston rendered both 
Mr. Davis and Mr. Benjamin alike hostile to him, and he 
was fated to experience the effect of their malevolence 
on more than one subsequent occasion previous to his 
ultimate deprivation of military command. 

All the efforts which could be essayed by others as 
well as by myself to effect the removal of Mr. Mallory, 
the Confederate Secretary of the Navy, and of Mr. Mem- 
minger, the Secretary of the Treasury, were completely 
ineffectual, though these efforts continued to be made for 
several years. About six months before the fall of Eich- 
mond into the hands of the Federal forces, I succeeded in 
obtaining a vote upon a resolution declarative of want 
of legislative confidence in Mr. Memminger, which com- 
pelled the friends of that gentleman in the House to en- 
gage for him that he would resign immediately after the 



o68 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

close of the session of Congress then in progress, if I 
would consent not to press my resolution to a final vote. 
This I cheerfully assented to, and in a few weeks there- 
after Mr. Memminger gave place to Mr. Trenholm, of 
South Carolina, who proved himself to be a most compe- 
tent and ef&cient of&cer, and a'most meritorious and wor- 
thy gentleman. 

Yery great mischief notoriously resulted to the Con- 
federate cause from the long retention in the office of 
commissary general of Colonel Northrop. This person 
is understood to be a native of South Carolina, and had 
spent some years in the city of Charleston anterior to the 
war as a practitioner of medicine upon the vegetarian 
system. Some mysterious circumstances, not heretofore 
explained, had in some way, many years previous to the 
commencement of the war, established relations of special 
amity and confidence between himself and Mr. Davis, in 
consideration of which he had been located in an ofl&cial 
position for which he was in every way as utterly unfit 
as any human being could be well imagined to be. His 
appearance was most unprepossessing indeed ; his man- 
ners were coarse, overbearing, and insulting ; his temper 
was austere, crabbed, and irritating; he was utterly igno- 
rant of the duties of the post assigned him, and was not 
at all solicitous to make himself acquainted with them. 
His self-esteem was the most inordinate that I have ever 
known any human being to possess, and no man at all 
capable of judging of such a matter would have regarded 
him as in all respects compos mentis. A general impres- 
sion had long prevailed in Charleston that he was, in 
point of fact, more or less disordered in mind ; and dur- 



NORTHROP AND HIS SUBORDINATES. 359 

ing the three years that I occupied a seat in the Confed- 
erate Congress, I received numerous letters from citizens 
of the highest respectability residing there, urging me, in 
the warmest terms, to aid in displacing him from the po- 
sition which he was so signally disgracing. I am not 
prepared to assert any thing in regard to his pecuniary 
honesty; but it is undoubtedly true that all over the 
Confederate States he had men employed to purchase 
supplies for his department of notoriously bad character, 
not a small number of whom are known to have accu- 
mulated large fortunes during the war, the names of some 
of whom I could, were it necessary, quite easily specify, 
having brought their iniquities heretofore to the view of 
the Confederate Congress. The h-eartless tyranny prac- 
ticed by this monster of iniquity in all the States of the 
South, in connection with the system" of forcible impress- 
ment established, has, I am persuaded, scarcely ever been 
equaled. His brutal indifference to the sufferings of the 
Confederate soldiery, by all of whom he was most cor- 
dially detested; his indecent and habitual disregard of 
the requisitions made upon his department, from time to 
time, by the various military commanders with whom he 
was necessarily thrown into contact ; his open and noto- 
rious employment of disrespectful and contemptuous lan- 
guage in regard to those in official station to whom he 
was legally subordinate, are matters upon which it would 
be now superfluous to dwell. Yet he was retained in the 
Commissary Department for four years, in utter contempt 
of remonstrance, of complaint, and of direct and positive 
accusations of delinquency. It is even true that Mr. 
i^orthrop was not a constitutional officer ; after the com- 



860 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

mencement of the permanent Confederate government he 
was never nominated to the Senate. But, though this 
matter was brought to Mr. Davis's special notice by grave 
proceedings in both houses of Congress, he still held on 
to Northrop, nor did he ever deign to present his name to 
the Senate for the sanction of that body up to the latest 
moment of his own official existence. 

When Mr. Benjamin was compelled to forego re-ap- 
pointment to the secretaryship of war, Mr. Davis was per- 
suaded to appoint to the vacant place a gentleman of rare 
qualifications and of eminent moral worth — Mr. Eandolph, 
of Virginia, a grandson of Thomas Jefferson. During this 
gentleman's occupancy of the department of war his con- 
duct was eminently exemplary; his high ability was con- 
stantly displayed in the performance of his arduous offi- 
cial duties, his industry was most untiring, and he gave 
the most indisputable evidence, every day and hour, of 
his eminent virtues, and his disinterested devotion to the 
cause which he had espoused. He was a man, though, 
of singular independence of spirit ; and, though sufiScient- 
ly deferential toward those to whom he was officially re- 
sponsible, yet he possessed too elevated a feeling of self- 
respect, and too much regard for his own well-established 
fame, to become the mere slave of a vain and arrogant 
chief magistrate ; so, in a short time, the public learned 
with regret that General Randolph had resigned and gone 
into private life, and that Mr. James A. Seddon, also a na- 
tive of Virginia, had shown himself so indecently regard- 
less of the honor of the " Ancient Dominion" as to con- 
sent to occupy the vacant post. 

From a man who had been willingly inducted into of- 



JAMES A. SEDDON, 361 

iice under sucli circumstances not much was to be rea- 
sonably expected, either of manly and efficient service or 
of official purity and disinterestedness. The career of 
Mr. Seddon, as Secretary of War, will long be remem- 
bered by all who ever entered the War Department 
while he sat enthroned therein with unmingled regret 
and indignation. It may be safely asserted that he did 
not possess one of the qualities needful to a creditable 
and useful performance of the duties which were now de- 
volved on him. He was never able to learn even the or- 
dinary routine of official business, and often scornfully 
declined attendance to matters of the most urgent import- 
ance. He was as arrogant and insulting to those who ap- 
proached him in his official sanctum^ as he was notorious- 
ly servile and fawning to his own executive chief. He 
evinced, from his very entrance into office, an utter disre- 
gard of all constitutional obligations ; and in the exercise 
of the authority committed to him, he proved himself to 
be the most heartless and ruffianly tyrant whom I ever 
yet saw in the possession of official power. Though he 
had always been an ardent state-rights man in professionj 
up to the breaking out of the war, it soon became evi- 
dent that he had never sincerely cherished the smallest 
regard for the principles embodied in the well-known 
state-rights creed ; and he habitually trampled under 
foot, and without a blush upon his livid and atrabilious' 
visage, all the anciently-recognized muniments of state 
sovereignty. I shall not waste time now by going into 
an elaborate specification of this man's multiplied of- 
fenses. It is perhaps sufficient to state that he enforced, 
with the most unfeeling rigor, all the most stringent and 

Q 



862 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

oppressive enactments of the Confederate Congress, in 
connection with forcible impressment and conscription ;'^ 

* I seize the opportunity here presented of mentioning an instance of 
the greatest atrocity, which I have not yet recorded, and which will be at 
once seen to be curiously illustrative of the shameful disregard, now gen- 
erally felt in official places, of all the recognized principles of civil liberty. 
General Hindman, of Arkansas, who, when a very young man, had, in 
the State of Mississippi, been a most noisy and unscrupulous advocate of 
Jefferson Davis and secession at that time propounded — who had after- 
ward gone to Arkansas, where he had led, for several years, a very turbu- 
lent and disreputable life, but, who, by force of party drill, had been sent for 
a year or two to the Federal Congress — when the war broke out, was almost 
immediately given a high military command, and was rapidly promoted, 
until, as a major general, he was sent to the state of his own residence, for 
the purpose of holding an important position there. This man, as his 
own formal report to the "War Department evidenced, finding, as lie said, 
that the very comprehensive provisions of the conscription law were not 
quite comprehensive enough to suit his purposes, deliberately amplified 
them by proclamation; declared martial law throughout Arkansas and 
the northern portion of Texas, and demanded the services of all whom he 
had thus illegally and tyrannically embraced in his own wide-sweeping 
conscription list. All who refused to obey his mandate, as he expressly 
confesses, were apprehended, subjected to trial by a military court appoint- 
ed at the instant by Hindman himself, and when convicted, as a consider- 
able number were, of an offense which he unblushingly acknowledges in 
this same report were wholly unknown to the law of the land, he had 
them executed, and, going even beyond the infernal Jefi'reys himself in 
barbarity, he, as he also ostentatiously declares in that same report, took 
care to be present to witness the dying agonies of his victims. This man 
seized upon all the cotton and other property for which he had use (as he 
boldly avows), burnt some, retained some, and appropriated a third por- 
tion to such purposes as he pleased. His cruelties were so enormous in 
Arkansas that it became unsafe that he should remain there longer, 
when he v/as brought across the Mississippi River, under the order of the 
War Department, made president of a court of inquiry for the trial of 
General Lovcll, and, after having made such a report in that case as was 
necessary to shield the officials in Richmond from blame in connection 



BRAGG AND HIS CRUELTIES. 863 

tbat in many known instances lie went very far beyond 
the scope of these odious enactments, while in others he 

with the capture of New Orleans, was immediately put in command of the 
largest division in the Army of Tennessee, where he remained until, run- 
ning into collision with a more potential presidential favorite, Bragg^ he 
was relieved from command, and is reported to be now a wanderer in 
some part of the Mexican republic. I exposed all the enormities of this 
wretch in open session in the Confederate Congress on more than one oc- 
casion, and took pains to have my exposition put in print, and yet could 
I not persuade Mr. Davis or Mr. Seddon to take the slightest notice of 
these fearful enormities, 

I have incidentally alluded to General Bragg. This military com- 
mander first set the example of proclaiming martial law, which he did re- 
peatedly, and upon the most unsatisfactory pretexts. I assert what I 
know to be true — charged to be true on more than one occasion in the 
Confederate Congress, and now stand prepared to establish,,by the most 
irrefutable proof, that he deliberately put to death, on repeated occasions, 
without the least show of legal authority (even such authority as the legal 
regulations existing under the Confederate government recognized), as 
meritorious and valiant soldiers as he had under his command. He 
evinced on all occasions, while he commanded the Army of Tennessee, an 
utter disregard of all the established principles of constitutional freedom, 
committed such excesses as a Sylla or a Marius would scarcely have ven- 
tured upon, and yet, in spite of all that could be done, his removal from 
command could not be effected, until the Confederate cause had become 
well-nigh utterly hopeless. On one occasion, in company with a major- 
ity of the Tennessee representatives and senators, I united in demand- 
ing the removal of General Bragg, and the substitution in his place of 
General Joseph E.Johnston. A written communication had been ad- 
dressed to the Confederate President requesting an interview, and de- 
siring that it should be a private one. He had consented to see us at 
a particular hour at his office (I could not have seen him elsewhere, as 
I never once called at the presidential mansion while a member of the 
Confederate Congress). We were received with sufficient politeness, 
but we presently perceived that Mr. Hunter, of Virginia, and Mr. Barn- 
well, of South Carolina, were to be also present. I addressed these gen- 
tlemen, and suggested to them that as they seemed to have precedence 



364 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

criminally relaxed the law in order to accommodate spe- 
cial friends or the members of his own family connection ; 
that he was an earnest advocate for the suspension of the 
writ of habeas corpus, and that when this writ was sus- 
pended in a manner completely to uproot every thing 
like civic jurisdiction in every part of the South, he ea- 
gerly took advantage of this condition of things to fill the 
prison-houses every where with as good citizens as the 
South contained, and to compel individuals to do military 
duty, in violation of the most solemn governmental com- 
pacts. This was especially true in regard to the six or 
seven thousand volunteers from the State of Maryland, 
who, after enlisting, without persuasion from any quarter, 
in the Confederate service for a specified period^ when this 
period had expired were rudely seized upon by the myr- 
midons of the War Department with a view to compelling 
them to re-enlist, under the penalty, if they disobeyed the 
mandate of the despot in whose hands they found them- 
selves, of being tried and punished as for desertion. It is 
even true, within my own knowledge, that when that 

over us, we would withdraw until their business was dispatched. To this 
they answered, "No, it is unnecessary," and took their seats between a 
large table and the wall, near enough to hear all that might go on. Our 
interview was very brief. Mr. Davis gave us to understand that the 
change which we demanded should be made, and we withdrew. This, 
by-the-by, was not done, and Bragg remained in command for many 
months thereafter. I recollect that Major Henry, of Tennessee, inquired 
of me, as we left the room, whether I thought that Mr. Hunter and Mr. 
Barnwell had been requested by Mr. Davis to be present, in order to bear 
witness to what might occur. To which I answered, that I would not un- 
dertake to decide ; but, considering that we had been all treated most 
disrespectfully, it was the last official visit that I should pay Mr. Davis, as 
indeed it was. This surely needs no comment. 



ATROCITIES OF MR. SEDDON. 865 

firm and upright judicial magistrate, Judge Haliburton, 
undertook in certain cases to grant writs of habeas corpus 
in behalf of some of those persecuted Marjlanders, and 
manifested a disposition to do them simple justice as far, 
at least, as was in his power, Mr. Seddon evinced an open 
disregard even of the authority of the Confederate dis- 
trict judge, and that officer Vv^as even informed, in the col- 
umns of the recognized governmental organ (the Senti- 
nel), which doubtless "spoke by the card," that the Sec- 
retary of War would pay no respect whatever to the 
most deliberate adjudications of the court in which he 
presided, touching the grave questions which had thus 
arisen before him for decision. And yet Mr. Davis re- 
tained this man in the office of secretary of war, amid 
continual indications of popular indignation and disgust, 
from month to month and from year to year ; nor would 
he have been at last seen to vacate the official position 
which he had so long deeply dishonored, but for the un- 
deniable fact that I had directly charged him, upon re- 
corded testimony^ that is to say, upon the evidences sup- 
plied by the books of his own department, of having 
caused to be paid to himself, by his own official subor- 
dinates, /or ^?/ dollars per husJiel for his whole crop of wheat 
for the year 1864, while he was, by the instrumentality 
oi forcible impressment^ compelling the farmers of North 
Carolina, Georgia, and other states, to yield up their wheat 
to the government officials at the inadequate jmce of from 
seven to nine dollars in Confederate pap>er. I made this ex- 
position in the last speech whidh I delivered in the Con- 
federate CoHgress. Mr. Seddon resigned the Department 
of War the very next day. As chairman of a special com- 



S6Q SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

mittee of the Confederate Congress, organized at my own 
instance, for the purpose of inquiring into cases of illegal 
imprisonment, I obtained from the superintendent of the 
prison-house in Eichmond, under the official sanction of 
the Department of War itself, a grim and shocking cata- 
logue of several hundred prisoners then in confinement 
therein, not one of whom was charged with any thing but 
suspected 2^oUiicaI wfidelity^ and this, too, not upon oath in 
a single instance. Before I could take proper steps to 
procure the discharge of these unhappy men, the second 
suspension of the writ of liberty occurred, and I presume 
that such of them as did not die in jail remained there 
until the fall of Eichmond into the hands of the Federal 
forces. 

It is a notorious and undeniable fact, that Mr. Seddon, 
as the incumbent of the War Department, did actually 
interfere, in the most rude and unfeeling manner, to pre- 
vent the passing beyond the Confederate lines of ladies 
of the highest respectability desirous only of carrying 
their infant female children to school in Maryland and 
other states, where the ordinary means of education vet 
existed, hoping in this way to save them from a portion 
of the worst consequences of the unfortunate war then in 
progress. This I assert upon my own personal knowl- 
edge of facts, and shall be content at present to state a 
single instance — that of Mrs. Ficklin, of Falmouth, in the 
State of Virginia — a lady of the highest social standing, 
and resident in the very neighborhood where Mr. Seddon 
had been himself born and reared to maturity. 

Mr. Seddon had been, at one time, for several years a 
member of the Federal Congress, and in the tempestuous 



CONFEDERATE CONGRESS. 367 

period of 1850 I well remember him as a sectional fac- 
tionist of the most extreme opinions. In the celebrated 
Peace Conference of 1861, he signalized himself by going 
beyond all other Southern members of that body in the 
demand of new securities for slaveholding rights in the 
South. He avowed himself to be wholly unsatisfied 
with the provisions of the Crittenden Compromise, and 
proposed several amendments to the Constitution in ad- 
dition to the guarantee of slavery forever in all territories 
south of 86° 80', one of which recognized the right of 
peaceable state secession^ and another of which denied ''the 
elective franchise and the right to hold office, whether 
federal, state, territorial, or municipal, to all persons who 
were, in whole or in part, of the African race." Just be- 
fore his appointment to the Department of War, he had 
been very badly defeated for a seat in the Confederate 
House of Eepresentatives in the Petersburg district. 

It is by no means just to the two houses of the Confed- 
erate Congress to suppose that there were no members 
of that body who did not discern the fatal tendency of 
affairs almost from the beginning of the contest, and 
who did not strive energetically to arrest the march of 
disastrous events. In both houses, I am glad to recol- 
lect that there were a considerable number of honest, 
painstaking, and able legislators, whose |)ublic experience 
had been considerable, whose literary attainments were 
far from being contemptible, and whose oratorical pow- 
ers would have commanded respect almost any where. 
That there was too much inclination, both in the Confed- 
erate Senate and in the House of Eepresentatives, to suc- 
cumb to Mr. Davis's dictatorial will, may be admitted. 



368 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

without attributing motives, at least to any very large 
number of these individuals, of an unworthy and disrep- 
utable character; and however strange may have been 
the action of the Confederate legislators toward the close 
of their of&cial career in Eichmond, and however blind- 
ed they must be confessed to have shown themselves to 
have been to occurrences which were then almost on the 
eve of taking place — i\iQ foresliadoivings of which, indeed, 
were beginning to be most distinct and palpable in the 
vista of the future — philosophy, tempered with generos- 
ity and fraternal sympathy, must cheerfully exonerate 
them from all harsh and ill-natured condemnation. Let 
all these things now pass by forever; they may have 
been, in the order of Providence, merely the means sup- 
plied by Divine Wisdom for the ultimate restoration of 
that Union — of rights, of feelings, and of energies — estab- 
lished by the wisdom of the past, never more, as we must 
hope, to be disturbed or endangered by the efforts of re- 
bellious violence/'^ 

* Before taking leave of the subject discussed above, I deem it proper 
to offer, in this imimposing and somewhat unattractive form, a few mis- 
cellaneous observations, the presentation of which will at least serve to 
gratify a reasonable curiosity apparently felt at this time in several quar- 
ters touching certain matters a good deal discussed of late. 

]. The celebrated Erlanger Loan, the proposition to enlist in which 
came to Richmond under the sinister auspices of Mr. John /^. Slidell, 
seemed to a considerable number of the members of the Confederate Con- 
gress to be a speculative project, adroitly set on foot chiefly for the benefit 
of Messrs. Slidell, Benjamin, & Co, , their aiders and abettors in the United 
States and in foreign countries, and we therefore struggled most earnest- 
ly to defeat it by every expedient known to parliamentary tactics. By 
the aid of the celebrated ten-viinutes rule and the sitting with closed doors, 
it was finally carried by a somewhat meagre majority in the House of 



ERLANGER LOAN — CONFISCATION ACT. 369 

^ Early in the month of December, 1864, to all men of 
discernment and foresight in the city of Eichmond, the 

Representatives. The dissentient members filed an elaborate ]»vtcst 
against tliis injudicious and unpardonable measure, which, it is hoped, 
will see the light one of these days. Those in Europe who are now com- 
plaining of severe pecuniary losses in consequence of having participated 
in this luckless scheme of finance will know whom to hold responsible. 

2. The Confiscation Act was opposed from the first in. the House of 
Representatives by a considerable number, including myself, alike upon 
the ground of its unconstitutionality, injustice, and impolicy. This was 
carried also in sec7-et session, under the abominable ten-viinutes rule, which 
rule I labored in vain, session after session, to get repealed, but which was 
retained by the votes of individuals justly apprehensive of the censures of 
an outraged constituency, should all the dark machinations which had 
their origin in this disreputable conclccve be ever made known through the 
public journals. The special supporters of Mr. Davis were always ready 
to go into secret session, a thing very easy to be effected, since a single 
member moving for it had it in his pOwer to bring about the immediate 
closing of the doors. 

At the very last session of the Confederate Congress the Confiscation 
Law was made still more cruel and onerous, at the instance of individu- 
als who have since shown themselves more than willing to save their own 
beloved estates from the forfeiture to which they were formerly so fero- 
ciously inclined to subject others who chanced to differ from them consci- 
entiously, both in reference to t\\Q feasibility and j^ropinety of the scheme 
of revolution. I do not know when my feelings were more outraged than 
they were only a few weeks anterior to the vacation of my seat in the 
Confederate Congress, by the heartless and unmanly attempt to confiscate 
the estates of all absentees, unless they had gone, or should thereafter go 
abroad with the consent of the government officials. This was intend- 
ed mainly to operate upon Dr. Duncan, of New York, and others of that 
class, who had been sojourning for several years before the beginning of 
the war outside of the Confederate States, and who it was known had 
very large possessions in said states. It was confessedly designed, like- 
wise, to reach the estates of certain ladies of considerable property who 
had thought proper to go to New York, to Philadelphia, or even beyond 
the ocean, for the purpose either of avoiding the horrors of internecine 

• Q2 



870 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

collapse of the Confederate cause appeared to be inevita- 
ble. There was only one possibility remaining that the 

strife or for the suitable education of their infant children. In looking 
back to the past, I confess that I am yet fall of surprise and indignation 
that persons professing to be civilized men and Christians, should have 
dared to attempt the perpetration of this double-damned iniquity. 

3. It is well known that Mr. Davis and his cabinet were originally op- 
posed to the Conscription Law. They were notoriously dragooned by a 
portion of the Confederate press into a recommendation of its adoption. 
But when this rank centralizing measure had been once put in operation, 
these gentlemen were not slow in perceiving how, by means of its rigid 
enforcement, and the general suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, 
they would be able to put down all opposition to their scheme of despotic 
domination. It is a remarkable fact that, even in the message of Mr. 
Davis, which first recommended to the Confederate Congress a resort to 
this anti-republican expedient, he declared that there had been no abate- 
ment whatever of the volunteering spirit, which still, he said, rather need- 
ed repression than stiimdation. H6w strange must it not now seem to all 
reasonable men, that in a war avowedhj commenced by the people of the 
South for their own safety exclusively, it should have been deemed allow- 
able, even had the volunteering spirit then altogether disappeared, io force 
the same people, under the most harsh and dishonoring penalties, to con- 
tinue the war after they should have themselves grown weary of its pros- 
ecution ! 

4. It is a fact worthy of notice, that nearly all the legislative enact- 
ments of the Confederate Congress most deleterious in their operation 
upon state-rights and popular freedom originated with ultra state-rights 
men, and ultra Democrats in profession. One of the most maniacal and 
astounding propositions brought forward in that unfortunate body was the 
one introduced about eighteen months ago by Mr. Barksdale, of Missis- 
sippi, which was a bill to establish viartial law generally throughout the 
Confederate States. The peculiar relations existing^'between this individ- 
ual and Mr. Davis fully justified the presumption that this latter person- 
age had been duly consulted before the bringing into the legislative hall 
this worse than political hydra. Did the Mountain party in the French 
Revolution ever manifest more ferocity than was indicated in this move- 
ment ? Posterity will hardly believe the statement, and yet is it absolute- 



MARTIAL LAW — THE ''OLD NORTH STATE." 871 

rusliing tide of ruin could be staid even for a few weeks. 
It was thought by a few that the immediate restoration 

ly true that the ultra secessionists, who professed to have brought on the 
war chiefly to maintain the right of separate state secession, were the first to 
deny the existence of any such right when certain movements were un- 
derstood to be in progress in North Carolina looking to peaceful secession 
from the Confederate States themselves ; and these persons urged most 
vehemently the putting the whole country under military law, in order to 
counteract all such attempts at withdrawal. I well remember that cer- 
tain fiery zealots from the "Old North State" came to Richmond about 
two years ago, and openly urged the sending of a military force at once 
into that region, in order to suppress all efforts at counter-revolution. 
This course of proceeding was even m'ged upon me. Wliat response I 
made to these secession-anti-secession worthies I shall leave to others to 
conjecture. 

5. No one will doubt, ten years hence, that the only chance for the 
eventual success of the Confederate cause lay in the immediate purchase by 
the rieivly-improvised government of all the cotton and tobacco of the South 
in the beginning of the v/ar, depositing it in safe and convenient locali- 
ties, and dispatching certificates of deposit, properly authenticated, to Eu- 
rope, for the raising of the requisite fiscal means for the prosecution of 
the war. Confederate paper had not yet depreciated; the Southern peo- 
ple had not yet become disgusted with the Confederate authorities at 
Richmond, and the Southern planters, it is known, were still generally 
willing to sell their cotton to the government for Confederate notes and 
bonds at from ten to twelve cents per pound. This policy was warmly 
nrged upon Mr. Davis and ]Mr. Memminger, neither of wliom could ap- 
preciate its wisdom ; nor did Mr. Davis's Secretary of the Treasury cease 
to denounce and ridicule the project, denominating it '■^soup-house legisla- 
tion,^^ until cotton had risen to nearly one dollar a pound, and Confeder- 
ate paper was circulating at the rate of four or five to one, and then this 
grand minister of finance commenced buying most lustily. INEr. Davis, it 
would seem, from certain published letters of his, did not cease to admire 
and extol Mr. Memminger's abilities as a financier up to the close of this 
remarkable struggle. 

6. Mr. Pollard, in his "Third Year of the War," states that, after the 
celebrated Dahlgren raid occurred, "The Libby Prison was undermined, 



372 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

of General Johnston to the command of the Army of 
Tennessee, and the granting of authority to himself and 

several tons of powder put under it, and the threat made that, if any dem- 
onstration on Richmond such as Dahlgren's was ever again to occur, 
the awful crime, the appalling barbarity would bo committed of blowing 
into eternity the helpless men confined in a Confederate prison." I had 
before heard of this, but only as a vague and unauthorized rumor, and 
I regret now to see this extraordinary fact asserted by one who is in 
every way so well entitled to credence. I seize this opportunity of declar- 
ing my own oft-avowed condemnation of every branch of this worse than 
Hunnic or Vandalic barbarity, including raids on defenseless cities, the 
burning of them at midnight, poisoning in all its forms, and all other ex- 
pedients not justified by the rules of civilized war. While on this subject, 
I shall proceed to state some additional particulars alike in justice to the 
dead and the living. I had known Colonel Dahlgren as a genteel and, 
apparently, very amiable young man, several years before the breaking out 
of the war. He was understood to have been in part brought up»and ed- 
ucated at the house of his worthy and accomplished uncle. General Dahl- 
gren, near the city of Natchez, in the State of Mississippi, and was repeat- 
edly a visitant, in company with the latter, to the city of Nashville, and to 
the celebrated Beersheba watering-place in that vicinage. I had the 
pleasure of entertaining him, also, once or twice at my own residence in 
Nashville. I will not undertake to say what changes the war may have 
wrought in his heart and character, but I must be permitted to doubt 
whether the genial and kind-mannered young man whom I knew so well 
five years ago could, in so short a time, have become the horrible monster 
that some over-excited persons have chosen to consider him. I have 
never been willing to believe that the raid which he attempted on Rich- 
mond had for its object a tithe of the atrocities which have been charged, 
nor have I ever regarded the evidence relied upon in support of this view 
of the matter as entirely satisfactory. That he intended to deliver the 
Union prisoners of war then held in Richmond, destroy, as far as he 
should be able, all the warlike munitions and military supplies there ac- 
cumulated, and seize and carry off Mr. Davis and his cabinet, can not bo 
doubted. That he designed a general massacre of the people of Rich- 
mond and the burning of that goodly city, or the summary execution of 
Mr. Davis and his ofiicial associates, I must be permitted to doubt. The 



DAHLGREN'S IIAID. "373 

General Forrest to raise, if practicable, a hundred thou- 
sand additional troops in the states of the South and 

subject is of a very delicate nature, and I do not choose to state here all 
that I suspect in regard to the marvelous publications made at the time 
in regard to this extraordinary and startling affair. After several weeks 
had passed away, and the public mind seemed to be restored to its wonted 
repose, a letter was addressed to me by General Dahlgren (the gentleman 
above referred to), dated at Atlanta, Georgia, where, with his amiable 
family, he was then residing, calling my attention in a very touching man- 
ner to the recent decease of his nephew, and to the anxious wish of his 
brother. Admiral Dahlgren, that the dead body of his son should be re- 
stored to him by the Richmond authorities— the general presuming, as he 
stated in his letter, that enmity toward his ill-fated nephew 7nust necessa- 
rily cease ivith his death. This letter I immediately inclosed to Mr. Davis 
not doubting that it would be at least accorded a respectful consideration 
by him, as the writer of it had, very early in the war, received a high mili- 
tary appointment at his hands. What action was taken upon the letter I 
never had the means of knowing. I must hope, though, for the honor of the 
South, that Mr. Davis and his cabinet were not so shamefully unmindful 
of the principles of a high-toned humanity as to persist in keeping the dead 
body of this victim of an unnatural war long after the reception of this 
impressive epistle. If any one shall blame me for interposing on this oc- 
casion in behalf of the principles of civilized warfare, I shall submit to all 
that may be said in reproof quite as patiently as I did some two years ago 
to the harsh denunciations and ingenious falsifications to which I was then 
subjected for daring persistently to remonstrate against all needless mal- 
treatment of Union prisoners of war. I am neither ashamed nor afraid 
to declare that I condemn all brutal treatment of military prisoners, by 
whomsoever ordered, countenanced, or executed ; and in a civil war, car- 
ried on between human beings of the same derivation and lineage, it is 
doubly atrocious, and I am confident that in this sentiment I am in per- 
fect accord with ninety-nine hundredths of our whole national population. 
As to my conduct in endeavoring to secure the restoration of Ulric Dahl- 
gren's mortal remains to his affectionate and grief-stricken father, he who 
disapproves it, I am sure, could hardly have made himself familiar with 
some of the most interesting examples which the page of history holds in 
preservation, nor even have read the thrilling account given by the Father 



874 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

West, with wbich to face the advancing army of Sher- 
man, might, at least for a short time, save EichmoncI 
from falling into the hands of Grant. Should this city 
be captured, nobody doubted that the struggle for South- 
ern independence must immediately terminate. Prodig- 
ious efforts were made by night and by day to procure 
the restoration of Johnston, but Mr. Davis luas inexorable ; 
nor did he consent that this most able and gallant, but 
deeply injured officer should return to that army of 
which he was the idol until it was altogether too late for 
any abilities whatever to retrieve the sinking cause. 

Under these circumstances, I thought I saw that, unless 
some early efforts to obtain peace should be made, a state 
of things might arise which would be almost as calami- 
tous as the permanent continuance of the war. I was sat- 
isfied that President Lincoln and his cabinet, if applica- 
tion should be made to them in season, would grant 
terms of pacification to the South of a far more liberal 
and beneficial character than were at all likely to be ob- 

of Poetry himself of the visit of the aged Priam to the tent of the grim 
Achilles, who, cruel and relentless as he is described to have been, did 
not refuse the exanimate body of Hector to parental imprecations. Plu- 
tarch tells us that it was Hercules, the renowned slayer of monsters and 
remover of monstrosities, who first enforced the duty of humanity toward 
the dead ; and I trust that the day will never come when a disregard of 
this duty will not be every where recognized as an unmistakable relic of 
barbarism. This affair belongs to a class of matters which, in the present 
inflamed state of the public mind, it is not prudent to dwell upon, but the 
time is coming w^hen it will be safe to disperse much of the mystery whicli 
now veils the past. When that time shall have arrived, the curtain which 
conceals certain transactions of enduring interest will be doubtless uplift- 
ed by the hand of some man who will dare to speak the truth, and the 
whole truth, both as to men and their acts. 



PEACE PROPOSITIONS IN CONFEDERATE CONGRESS. 875 

tained, if nothing should be done in the way of procuring 
peace until Savannah, Charleston, Wilmington, and Eich- 
mond itself should have Mien, all of which, I felt assured, 
after conferring with some of the first military men on 
the continent, was both proximate and certain. I am not 
at all ashamed to confess that I gave my hearty consent 
to certain resolutions about this time introduced into the 
Confederate Congress by several gentlemen of great 
weight and intelligence, proposing to divide the responsi- 
bility of the movement tending to peace with the Pres- 
ident. I will even acknowledge that each one of these 
peace propositions was shown to me before it was offered 
in the House of Eepresentatives. When these had all 
signally failed, mainly in consequence of the overwhelm- 
ing executive influence arrayed against them, I resolved 
still to do all in my power to stave off that general ruin 
which I could not but regard as imminent. I consulted 
freely with many of the most enlightened and influential 
men that the South then contained, including three of 
my own valued colleagues, Messrs. Atkins, Colyar, and 
Meneese, and including also several military men of great 
eminence, and shaped my conduct accordingly. The 
fact was very well known to me that Mr. Davis and his 
friends were confidently looking for foreign aid, and from 
several quarters. It was stated in my hearing repeated- 
ly, by several special friends of the Confederate President, 
that one Imndred iliousand French soldiers were expected 
to arrive within the limits of the Confederate States by 
way of Mexico ; while it was more than rumored that a 
secret compact^ wholly unauthorized by the Confederate 
Constitution, with certain Polish commissioners, who had 



876 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

been lately on a visit to Eichmond, had been effected, 
by means of which Mr. Davis would soon be supplied 
with some twenty or thirty thousand additional troops, 
then refugees from Poland, and sojourning in several Eu- 
ropean states ; which latter force, when it should arrive, 
not being levied under congressional authority, would be 
completely at the command of the President for any pur- 
pose whatever. I was perfectly satisfied that, should Mr. 
Davis even consent to the sending of commissioners to 
President Lincoln to treat for peace, he would so manacle 
their hands by instructions as to render impossible all at- 
tempts at successful negotiation. It would be quite in 
my power to show, did I choose to do so, that President 
Lincoln had avowed himself willing to guarantee to his 
fellow-citizens of the South peace on most liberal terms, 
including universal amnesty^ provided they would at once 
relinquish their hostile attitude and return to their an- 
cient allegiance. 

The following copy of a pamphlet, addressed to my 
own political constituents in Tennessee, and sent to them 
in the month of March last from the city of London, is 
here inserted, with a view of showing what were my ob- 
jects, and the objects of those with whom I was acting at 
this period in furtherance of peace. 

^^ Golden Cross Hotel, Tlie Strand, "i 
Lo?idon, February 24, 1865. S 

" To the Sovereign People of the State of Tennessee: 

"When, fellow-citizens, a little less than two years ago, 

you demanded that I should continue to represent you in 

the Congress of the Confederate States, at a moment when 

I had resolved, for various reasons of a most substantial 



EFFOETS TO OBTAIN PEACE. 377 

character, to repair once more to the walks of private life 
I little thouglit that, in so brief a space, I should, in order 
to commune with you freely in regard to matters vitally 
associated with your honor and your happiness, be com- 
pelled to seek refuge in a foreign land, where, thanks to 
the wisdom and patriotism of the descendants of our no- 
ble Anglo-Saxon forefathers, freedom of speech and free- 
dom of the press are yet inflexibly maintained, and where 
all valuable truth, connected either with politics, morals, 
science, or religion, may be boldly asserted and freely dif- 
fused. But such is the actual condition of things in both 
sections of my own dear native country at the present 
time, that I have found it necessary to pass to another 
hemisphere, that I might safely state to you facts, a knowl- 
edge of which is indispensable to your future welfare, and 
which, were I not to communicate to you in some form 
or other, you would doubtless regard me, and justly too, 
as a great official delinquent. 

'^Eumor has doubtless some time ago informed you, in 
her own vague and ambiguous manner, that I have for 
several months past altogether disconnected myself from 
the legislative councils of the Confederate States, and the 
reasons which have influenced me in thus {voluntarily) de- 
clining farther to represent a people whom I so much love 
and honor, and who have in various ways placed me un- 
der such profound obligations to them, it is more than 
probable have been, at least in some confused and dis- 
torted manner, already communicated to many of you. 
It is my purpose on this occasion to open to your view 
the whole truth of the matter, in order that I may be thus 
saved from the unmerited disapproval of those whose fa- 



378 SCY-LLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

vorable and friendly judgment I prize far above the smiles 
and commendation of all the crowned monarchs of earth. 
"When you first deputed me to Eichmond, nearly four 
years ago, you well knew the political principles by which 
my conduct as your representative would be guided, and 
were not at all ignorant of what my action had formerly 
been in connection with all the great public questions 
which had occupied the popular mind in the United 
States for more than twenty years past. You knew that 
in 1850, that most trying period in American history, I 
had proved in every possible way my entire devotion to 
the Federal Union, and my zealous and unbending oppo- 
sition to every thing in the shape of sectionalism^ whether 
making itself manifest either in the North or in the South. 
You knew that, in harmony with the examples of Vir- 
ginia and North Carolina, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, 
and Arkansas, I had, as nearly the whole population of 
Tennessee besides had done, refused all connection with 
the perilous scheme of secession, projected by certain po- 
litical zealots many years ago, which had been defeated 
(most signally) when an effort was made to carry it into 
practical execution in the year 1851, but which, notwith- 
standing, had been still secretly cherished in the bosoms 
of its hot-headed and visionary devotees, until, about six 
years since, these wildly adventurous personages came to 
the conclusion that the period had at last arrived when a 
few ingenious expedients, easy to be devised and put in 
effective execution by such skillfal architects of mischief 
as they (very justly too) considered themselves to be, 
would be sufficient to bring about, in connection with the 
presidential election of 1860, the perfect fruition of all for 



EFFOKTS TO OBTAIN PEACE. 379 

wtiicli they had so long been struggling. "When, without 
any earnest solicitation on my part, you sent me to Rich- 
mond as the representative of your opinions and the cham- 
pion and defender of your interests, you knew that I had 
as little in common with the boasted secession leaders as 
any other public man in the South ; that I had earnestly 
opposed all the incipient steps which had led to the fear- 
ful state of things then existing ; that I had openly de- 
nounced, in every part of the United States which I could 
reach, in 1860, the conduct and motives of nearly all the 
prominent actors in the gloomy yet ludicrous tragi-come- 
dy of national ruin then enacting ; that I had on numer- 
ous occasions solemnly warned my Southern fellow-coun- 
trymen every where that the breaking up of the Federal 
Union would be followed by a bloody civil war, by the 
destruction of slavery, and the general devastation of the 
South ; and, finally, that I had never fully acquiesced 
in the propriety of our entering into the contest now in 
progress, until the Southern senators and representatives 
in the Federal Congress had, with a want of wisdom and 
true moral courage unprecedented in the world's history, 
ingloriously vacated their seats in that body, and (doubt- 
less in accordance with a plan previously agreed upon 
among them) hastened to the city of Montgomer}^, framed 
a new Constitution of government, and taken all the need- 
ful steps for the bringing on of a war, without the im- 
mediate commencement of which they well knew their 
scheme of disunion would turn out to be altogether im- 
practicable. 

" Under such circumstances, and with the fullest knowl- 
edge of them on your part, I repeat, I was dispatched to 



880 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

Eichmond, and entered the Confederate Congress in fhe 
month of February, 1862. "Whether my course in that 
body since has been honest, independent, and capable, I 
shall leave you to judge. My general course as a legisla- 
tive functionary is doubtless already familiar to most of 
you. My early and persistent attempts to effect a re- 
modeling of the wretched cabinet by whom I found Mr. 
Davis surrounded, which attempts were crowned in the 
end with perhaps as much of success as could have been 
reasonably anticipated ; the exposition of rank official 
corruption which from time to time I have felt constrain- 
ed to make; the firm and unyielding opposition which I 
have uniformly presented to the shameful efforts of Mr. 
Davis and his servitors to undermine the public liberties 
and establish a despotism upon their ruins; the zeal with 
which I have labored to supply your suffering soldiers 
in the Confederate armies with every thing necessary to 
their comfort and ef&ciency ; the earnest and seasonable 
vindication of certain of our most meritorious military 
commanders when heartlessly and wickedly assailed by 
Mr. Davis and his employes — the merits of which com- 
manders are now universally admitted ; the untiring in- 
dustry which I have displayed in the arraignment of in- 
competent generals with a view to their dismissal — the 
eo;re2;ious demerits of whom no one now denies — all these 
things, I am sure, are already fully known to yoii, and 
upon them I need not now expatiate. At length (three 
months ago), owing mainly to the gross and undeniable 
mismanagement of the military and civil concerns of the 
Confederate States by Mr. Davis and his cabinet associ- 
ates, abetted and sustained by an incompetent and servile 



EFFOKTS TO OBTAIN PEACE. 881 

Congress, it became evident to every man of discernment 
with whom I held intercourse that unless an early and 
an honorable peace could be speedily effected, the South 
would be inevitably ruined. Perceiving that Mr. Davis 
was bent upon a farther prosecution of the war, for pur- 
poses which I knew to be of a character wholly selfish, 
after freely consulting with the best and wisest men whom 
I met, I resolved to lose no time in introducing resolutions 
in the House of Eepresentatives looking to immediate ac- 
tion on the part of Congress itself with a view to securing 
a termination of the war. These resolutions receiving no 
favor in a body notoriously, to some extent, under execu- 
tive control, and other resolutions, having the same object 
in view, brought forward upon consultation with me by 
several worthy members of the House having met with 
a similar fate, I deemed it necessary to make the some- 
what unusual experiment which will be presently ex- 
plained to you. 

"Before I enter farther into this business, though, I 
must be allowed to say, in justification of my subsequent 
conduct, that the condition of Confederate affairs seemed 
to me to be at the moment almost hopeless. The unwise 
action of President Davis in removing General Joseph E. 
Johnston from the command of the Army of Tennessee, 
and sending General Hood upon an objectless errand to 
the neighborhood of the city of Nashville, had evidently 
compromised most thoroughly the only military force 
which could be seasonably made available for the defense 
of the whole country west of the Alleghany Mountains 
and east of the Mississippi Eiver, and had opened at the 
same time the States of Georgia, Alabama, South Caro- 



882 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

lina, and North Carolina to tlie invading forces of ttie 
United States, under tbe command of General Sherman. 
It was obvious to me, as I openly declared in my place 
in Congress — at a time, too, when Mr. Davis and his sim- 
ple-hearted admirers were predicting far different results 
— that the city of Savannah would very soon fall into the 
hands of Greneral Sherman, and that the capture of Charles- 
ton, Branchville, Wilmington, and even Eichmond itself, 
could not long be delayed. Meanwhile, it was equally 
evident that the Confederate government, in all its depart- 
ments, was most rapidly losing the public confidence, and 
becoming, indeed, positively odious. A series of legisla- 
tive enactments had passed, under strong executive press- 
ure, which left no hope of the preservation of popular 
freedom in the states of the South, however successful we 
might be in the prosecution of the pending war. Presi- 
dent Davis, in his regular annual message, had openly and 
formally proposed a measure, apparently very much fa- 
vored at the time by his supporters in the two houses of 
Congress, as well as by the leading newspapers, known 
to be specially afdlfated with his administration, which 
virtually relinquished the maintenance of what is known 
as African slavery, and had deliberately asserted the pow- 
er of the Confederate government to execute a sweeping 
system of emancipation without even asking the consent 
of the states within whose limits this system existed. The 
Confederate financial system was clearly in a state border- 
ing on collapse. A new Federal Congress was to come 
into existence on the 4th of the coming March, which it 
was known would be composed of materiel far less favor- 
able to the granting of just and liberal terms of pacifica- 



EFFOKTS TO OBTAIN PEACE. 883 

tion to the South even than the present Congress, though 
it was also known that this body was proceeding with all 
possible celerity to amend the Federal Constitution itself 
(in the precise manner, though prescribed in that instru- 
ment) so as to bring about the immediate extinction of 
African slavery throughout all the states constituting the 
Federal Union. I saw, most plainly and painfully, that 
no time was to be lost if an honorable and advantageous 
settlement with the North was desired, and I determined, 
in pursuit of this object, not to stickle at mere formaliiies 
of any sort ; and, accordingly, under the deliberate ad- 
vice, yea, at the earnest solicitation of some of the most 
patriotic and statesmanlike personages that the Confeder- 
ate States can boast, I entered upon the experimental ex- 
pedient already referred to, a more particular account of 
which will now be given. I set out from Richmond about 
the 20th of December just passed, in company with my 
wife, who had a passport from the Richmond authorities 
empowering her to return to our residence in the city of 
ISTashville. On reaching the Potomac River, in the county 
of Westmoreland, I addressed the following letter to the 
Speaker of the House of Representatives, to which I now 
ask your special attention : 

" ' 0« the Bank of the Potomac, in sight of the Birthplace ) 
of Washington, December 24, 1864. ) 

" '' HonoTcible Thomas S. Bocoche^ Speahei' of the House 
of Representatives : 
" ' Sir, — In an hour or two, if some unseen impedi- 
ment shall not arise to defeat the execution of my pres- 
ent design, I shall cross the majestic river upon the banks 
of which repose the ashes of my forefathers for many 



884 SCYLLA AND CHAEYBDIS. 

generations past, and visit the city of Washington for 
the purpose of ascertaining whether or not it is practi- 
cable to obtain for the people of the Confederate States an 
early and an honorable peace, after the most bloody and 
exhausting struggle of arms which has occurred in mod- 
ern times, and in all respects the most deplorable that has 
yet found record upon the page of history. No human 
being save myself is responsible for this movement, nor 
should I have undertaken it but for the notorious fact 
that the two executive departments at Washington City 
and at Eichmond have relations with each other which 
render it almost impossible that regular diplomatic inter- 
course should occur between them, and but for the addi- 
tional fact that the two houses of the Confederate Con- 
gress seem to be altogether unwilling to do any thing 
calculated to bring about a cessation of hostilities, and 
the restoration of peace and amity between those who, in 
my deliberate judgment, should never have allowed them- 
selves to be drawn into a war so unnatural, and even 
fratricidal in its character — so destructive of the best in- 
terests of civilization and Christianity — and which, if it 
shall continue to be prosecuted for four years more, must 
inevitably, from the natural operation of war itself, result 
in the establishment of two of the most grinding despot- 
isms that the world has yet known. Should I succeed 
in my present Undertaking, my country and the cause of 
freedom will be materially benefited ; should I fail, dis- 
credit, ridicule, and even contempt will be most surely 
visited upon me in full measure ; even many sensible and 
good men will recognize me as a mere visionary project- 
or ; while the envious, the illiberal, the malevolent — the 



EFFORTS TO OBTAIN PEACE. 385 

ignoble time-servers of the period — tlie slavish idolaters 
of power — will not scruple to denounce me as a traitor to 
what is known as the Confederate Government. For all 
this I am prepared, and I am likewise prepared to under- 
go trial for alleged treason to the government of the 
United States, should those now occupying the seats of 
authority in Washington City deem this the sort of treat- 
ment which should be awarded to a disinterested and 
voluntary embassador of peace. I hope that it will not 
appear either vainglorious or egotistical in me to declare 
farther that, should it be my fate to die upon the scaffold 
in consequence of undertaking to execute a mission so 
fully approved by my own conscience, and so cordially 
sanctioned by some of the wisest and most virtuous men 
now upholding the Confederate cause, I feel, notwith- 
standing (though my sufferings will probably awaken but 
little of commiserative sympathy in any quarter), that, in 
passing from the stage of mortal existence, I shall be able 
sincerely to exclaim in the language of classic poesy, 

" ' "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. " 

I have the honor to ask that you will do me the justice 
to lay this communication before the House over which 
you preside, in order that such action may be taken in the 
premises by the members thereof as they shall deem ad- 
visable. Should it be decided by them that expulsion 
from that body is necessary to the maintenance of its 
corporate dignity^ I beg you be assured that Aristides him- 
self did not more serenely submit to the doom of ostra- 
cism than I shall to such punitory sentence, at the hands 
of those with whom it has been my fortune to be associ- 

K 



386 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

ated for the last three years of unremitted toil and suffer- 
ing, as they shall choose to inflict. 

" ' I have the honor to be your obedient servant, 

" ' H. S. FOOTE.' 

"To this letter I subsequently appended a postscript, 
in which, for reasons stated therein, I made known my 
resignation of the seat in Congress then occupied by me. 
Not succeeding in passing the Potomac Eiver as I had ex- 
pected, I proceeded to the neighborhood of Occoquan 
Creek, in the county of Prince William, whence it was 
my intention to proceed to the city of Washington, for 
the purposes named in the above letter to Mr. Bococke, 
when I was arrested by certain military persons acting 
under Confederate authority, and was carried to the city 
of Fredericksburg, where I remained in military custody 
for nearly a week, and was finally reduced to the neces- 
sity of applying for a writ of habeas corpus with a view to 
my enlargement. You have doubtless heard that I was 
immediately released from prison by the fiat of the learn- 
ed and eminent judicial functionary before whom I was 
carried, and that I proceeded afterward, without delay, 
to the hall of the House of Eepresentatives in Congress, 
and delivered a speech in vindication of my character 
and motives before a large and evidently approving audi- 
ence, with the exception only of those illiberar and heart- 
less miscreants who, in my absence, had presumed to. as- 
sail me, but who, when they found me once more in their 
presence, and ready to hold them, face to face, to a just 
responsibility, most disgracefully shrank from every thing 
like manly contest with the individual whom they had, 



EFFORTS TO OBTAIN PEACE. 887 

at the bidding of their imperial master, so basely attacked 
with unjust and malignant charges which they well knew 
to be wholly unfounded. On concluding this, the last 
harangue certainly which I shall ever make in that moh- 
hish assemblage known as the Congress of the Confeder- 
ate States, and after drawing up, at the request of numer- 
ous friends, the remarks which had fallen from me on this 
extraordinary occasion for publication, I proceeded, with-* 
out delay, to execute my original scheme of seeking access 
to the Washington authorities. For this purpose, I trav- 
eled, under singularly uncomfortable circumstances, in the 
coldest weather that has occurred in Virginia for many 
years (being sometimes on rail-cars, sometimes on horse- 
back, and sometimes even on foot), until finally I reached 
the head-quarters of Brigadier General Devens of the 
Federal Army, to whom I reported myself, unfolded 
frankly the objects of my journey to Lovettsville, where 
I had found him located, and asked for such facilities for 
corresponding with those in power in Washington City 
as he might feel justified in affording me. This courteous 
officer at once dispatched a telegram to General Sheridan, 
his superior in command, whose head-quarters were in 
the town of Winchester, which last-named officer, with- 
out delay, after communicating with the official author- 
ities in Washington, and acting under their instructions, 
directed one of his staff to call on me at Lovettsville and 
receive any communication which I might be inclined* to 
address to official personages in Washington, and also to 
bear the same to its place of destination. I sat down im- 
mediately, and, in a hurried manner, drafted the following 
letter to Mr. Seward : 



388 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. -^ 

" ^ Lovettsville, January 30, 1865. 

" ^Ho7i. Wm. H. Seward^ Secretary of State of the Uni- 
ted States : 

" 'Sir, — I have just received information that I shall 
be allowed to send a communication addressed to the au- 
thorities in Washington City touching the very delicate 
and important matters concerning which it is the purpose 
of the journey I am now making, to confer, if permitted 
to do so, with yourself and those officially associated with 
you in the administration of governmental aflOiirs. I as- 
sure you that this mode of conferring with you is, in my 
judgment, far preferable, for various reasons, to any oth- 
er that could have been adopted. My object in approach- 
ing Washington you will find very explicitly set forth in 
a letter addressed by me to the Hon. Thomas S. Bococke, 
Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Confed- 
erate Congress (of which body I have voluyitarily ceased 
to be a member), a copy of which letter is herewith trans- 
mitted. On reading the communication to Mr. Bococke, 
you will see that I am alone actuated in making this ef- 
fort to hold some interchange of views with the authori- 
ties at Washington in regard to the means of terminating 
this unhappy war, by an earnest and patriotic desire for 
peace and its attendant blessings, of which for four years 
past our dear native land has been so unhappily de- 
prived. 

" ' To you, sir, it is unnecessary for me to say that I 
had no hand whatever in the origination of that fierce and 
bloody contest now in progress. In 1850, in the Senate 
of the United States, of which august legislative body w^e 
were both members, I supported, with such moderate 



EFFORTS TO OBTAIN PEACE. ^ 889 

ability as I possessed, but with a zeal unsurpassed by 
none, the system of wise and equitable adjustmerd of the 
then outstanding sectional questions which had generated 
so much of unfraternal feeling between the North and 
the South. In 1851, upon the very issue of Union or 
Disunion^ I had the honor of defeating for the office of 
Governor of the State of Mississippi the personage now 
known as President of the Confederate States. From 
that period up to the actual breaking out of hostilities be- 
tween the states of the South and those of the North, 
though in a private station, I constantly exerted myself 
in every possible mode to suppress sectional irritation, 
and to prevent those fearful consequences we are all now 
so painfully realizing. To the Kansas- Nebraska Bill, the 
Lecompton Constitution Bill, and all kindred measures cal- 
culated to awaken sectional strife, I presented a steady 
and unyielding opposition. To the proposal to reopen 
the African slave-trade, agitated in certain localities of 
the South a year or two before the commencement of the 
war, I presented, as some doubtless yet remember, some- 
what more than a calm and decided opposition. I had 
no hand whatever in 1860 in giving to the Democratic 
presidential platform a sectional and aggressive aspect, be- 
lieving as I did that such a measure was likely to be pro- 
ductive of disunion and civil war, and that it was more 
certain, if possible, to uproot and to destroy the domestic 
institutions of the South, as Henry Clay (that august 
apostle of peace and union) had so emphatically predicted 
in 3^our presence and mine in 1850. When Mr. Lincoln 
was elected to the presidency in 1860, 1 was not one of 
those who thought and said that this occurrence justified 



890 SCYLLA AND CHAKYEDIS. 

the attempt, immediately made by the secession managers^ 
to break up the Federal Union. I was not a member of 
the celebrated Montgomery Convention, nor in the least 
degree a party to the counsels in which that ill-starred as- 
semblage originated. 

" ' Until war was already raging, and until Virginia, 
the venerated mother of states, had resolved to enter into 
that war, Tennessee and Tennesseeans declined all con- 
nection with what they deemed and have ever deemed 
an unwise and dangerous enterprise; and when we did 
(either wisely or unwisely) finally resolve to take part in 
this fearful conflict, we did so with most painful reluc- 
tance, and chiefly^ as we honestly* avowed at the time, in 
defense of our brethren of the cotton-growing states, ex- 
posed, as we saw them most plainly to be, to the danger 
of being, in a few weeks or months at most, overrun and 
utterly ruined. As a member of the Confederate Con- 
gress for three years past, though doing all in my power, 
as I am not ashamed to confess, to place in the hands of 
President Davis all the means of defending the South 
against the large invading armies sent within her con- 
fines, yet never did I give a single vote calculated unduly 
to protract hostilities or to impart needless asperity to the 
pending conflict. I had no hand whatever in fixing a 
system of forcible conscription upon the people and states 
of the South, or in confiscating the estates of those who 
did not choose, for conscientious reasons (which I could 
not help appreciating), to bear arms against the govern- 
ment established by their venerated fathers. Not a ses- 
sion of the Confederate Congress'has passed during which 
I have not done all in my power to bring about, if possi- 



EFFORTS TO OBTAIN PEACE. 391 

ble, a termination of the war alike honorable to both the 
parties to it. 

" 'About two months ago, when I became thoroughly 
satisfied that Mr. Davis and his associates were bent on 
establishing a despotism xxndiQr foreign protection, and had 
determined never to consent to any peace except one 
founded on the overthrow of republican institutions, I re- 
solved, in the most open manner too, to denounce the 
conspirators against the freedom of my fellow-citizens of 
the South and the heartless betrayers of the most sacred 
of earthly trusts, to resign my seat in the Confederate 
Congress, and seek refuge in some foreign land, where I 
might in quiet mourn over the ruin of my country and 
the desolation of a land once the abode of liberty, of pros- 
perity, and of all earthly felicity. I thought it my duty, 
though, ere I should forever abandon a country and a 
people so dear to my affections, to make one more man- 
ly and earnest effort for an early and honorable peace. 
Hence my present attitude. 

" ' I now have the honor to say, for myself and for a 
large number of the most weighty and influential states- 
men that the South contains, and, as I have good reason 
to believe, in accordance with the wishes also of a very 
large majority of the sovereign people of the Southern 
States, whether in or out of the Confederate armies, that 
we, the Conservatives of the South, are ready and anx- 
ious to enter once more into fraternal union with our fel- 
low-citizens of the North ; that we are resolved, if an op- 
portunity of doing so honorably shall be afforded us, to 
withdraw at once from all political connection with the 
government now located in the city of Kichmond, and to 



8^2 SCYLLA AND CHAEYBDIS. 

place ourselves and all we hold dear once more under the 
protection of the flag of our fathers. 

" ' No one knows better than I do that no such pacifi- 
cation as that which I now propose can ever come from 
Mr. Davis. His official position and his devotion to his 
own selfish schemes of individual aggrandizement alike 
forbid it. But let President Lincoln issue a formal proc- 
lamation^ addressed to the people of the Confederate States, 
offering to them complete amnesty for the past, and a full 
restoration of the constitutional rights which thej former- 
ly enjoyed, and they will immediately hold Conventions 
in all of the said states and vote themselves back into the 
Federal Union, calling home their troops at once, and 
leaving Mr. Davis to enjoy, as he shall be able to do, the 
despotism which he has established, together with such 
foreign protection for himself and his ignoble projects as it 
may be in his power to secure. 

" ' There seems to me to be but one difficulty in the 
way of thus bringing this war to a close, and that stands 
connected with the slavery question — a question which 
has undoubtedly assumed, as was reasonable to have been 
expected, several new aspects during the present war. I 
should hope that, in consideration of the manifold advan- 
tages of such a peace as I have proposed (including, of 
course, the future enforcement of what is known as the 
Monroe doctrine), our brethren and fellow-citizens of the 
North would be inclined, through the action of tlae Fed- 
eral government, to deal with us liberally and kindly. 
Consider, if you please, that the fate of slavery has been 
sealed by the operation of the 'war itself; that Maryland 
is now a free state, and Missouri likewise; that Ken- 



EFFORTS TO OBTAIN PEACE. 893 

tucky, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Arkansi.3 
are sure in a few years, hy ihelr own voluntary action^ to 
adopt a system of emancipation ; and that, in all proba- 
bility, before the close of the present century, slavery will 
nowhere exist upon the continent. Can you not afford, 
then, to leave it where the Federal Constitution left it? 

" ' If, though, circumstances exist which render such a 
plan of settlement impossible^ then I am prepared to say, 
in behalf of those whom I represent, that we will agree 
to such a change of the Federal Constitution as will se- 
cure the entire extinction of slavery on i\iQ first day of 
January^ 1900, and which will provide also for the free- 
dom of all persons of African blood who shall be born 
after ihefii^st day of January^ 1890. 

" ' I shall not, in this very hasty letter, enlarge upon 
this scheme of settlement, or undertake to point out all 
the happy consequences which appear to me as likely to 
result from its adoption. Nor shall I undertake to de- 
picture the glory which will be assuredly achieved by 
those who shall be prominently concerned in the con- 
summation thereof — ^^ I speak unto wise men; judge ye what 
I say P'' 

" ' In conclusion, I have to declare that if, as I have 
never heretofore believed, but as has been by certain per- 
sons diligently inculcated in the South, subjugation^ in- 
stead of fraternal pacification, is intended by those who 
now bear rule in Washington City, I shall have to ask 
that (provided always you do not desire to try me as a 
criminal offender, an ordeal not altogether unanticipated 
by me, and from which assuredly I shall not shrink) you 
will be kind enough to send me such a passport as will 

R2 



894 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

enable me to go to some foreign country without delay, 
being utterly unwilling to witness the unimaginable hor- 
rors of which the present year of this most unnatural and 
impolitic war can not but be productive. 

" ' If what I have here suggested (necessarily in a most 
hurried and imperfect manner) should have the good for- 
tune to command a favorable consideration, I stand ready 
to make such farther revelations, both as io facts and^er- 
sons^ as will leave no doubt upon the minds of President 
Lincoln and his constitutional advisers that ample facil- 
ities exist for the bringing about, in the short period of 
forty days too, such a counter-revolution as is above refer- 
red to. All that I desire is to receive assurance that the 
information which I deem it proper, for reasons alike of 
prudence and of honor ^ to hold for the present in reserve^ 
if imparted, will conduce to the .restoration of peace and 
the re-establishment of the Federal Union, in a manner 
and upon terms consistent with the present honor and 
future safety of the South, and I will at once proceed to 
make full disclosures. 

'' 'Hoping soon to receive some response to this com- 
munication, I have the honor to be your obedient serv- 
ant, H. S. FOOTE.' 

" In about five days after the transmission of the above 
letter to Mr. Seward, I received, at the hands of the mili- 
tary officer through whom I had addressed him, the fol- 
lowing reply : 

{Memorandum.) 

" ^Department of State, Washington, January 31, 1865. 

"'A communication addressed to the Secretary of 



EFFORTS TO OBTAIN PEACE. 395 

State by Henry S. Foote, an insurgent who has volunta- 
rily come within the military lines, and is held in custody 
within Major General Sheridan's command, has been re- 
ceived and has been submitted to the President of the 
United States. Any farther information which the pris- 
oner may think it proper to impart to the government 
may be communicated in the same manner as the com- 
munication which is now acknowledged. 

" ' Major General Sheridan will, if Mr. Foote shall 
choose, pass him back within the insurgent lines, or will 
send him forward to Major General Dix at New York, 
who will be instructed to allow him to pass without un- 
necessary delay beyond the jurisdiction of the United 
States, not to return during the continuance of the war 
without leave from this Department. 

(Signed), " ' William II. Seward.' 

" On perusing this letter of Mr. Seward, I came at once 
to the conclusion (I hope without sufficient ground) that 
nothing that I could in addition say, either to himself or 
President Lincoln, could, in the delicate and embarrass- 
ing situation in which they found themselves, at all avail 
in stopping the deplorable effusion of precious American 
blood — the terrible destruction of property and national 
character, and the extinction of the once fondly -cherished 
confraternal ties between those who ought yet to be 
friends and brethren, both in feeling and in action, and I 
therefore promptly announced my intention to proceed 
at once to the city of New York and report myself to 
General Dix, as Mr. Seward's letter directed. I set out 
accordingly for the Empire City of tlig North, accompa- 



396 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

nied bj the gentlemanly young military officer already 
referred to. We arrived there on the evening of the 5th 
instant, and next morning called on General Dix at his 
head-quarters, who received me with marked respect and 
affability. I found him fully advised of the correspond- 
ence (if it could be really so called) which had been tak- 
ing place between Mr. Seward and myself, and of the 
privilege which had been accorded me of going abroad, 
if I chose to do so. Intermediate reflection, though, had 
satisfied me that it was my duty, as a true friend to peace, 
and as a faithful agent of those at whose bidding I had 
taken it upon myself to become a mediator between the 
parties contestant, to make one more effort for the attain- 
ment of the desired end. I therefore requested General 
Dix to forward the following additional letter to Mr. 
Seward: 

" '■ Neio Yorh, Fehritary G, 1865. 

" ' Hon. Wm. H. Seivard, Secretary of State: 
" ' Sir, — Your communication of the 31st ultimo, head- 
ed ^^ Memorandum^^^ reached me at Lovettsville, in the 
State of Virginia, on the day before yesterday. There 
was something in the style and spirit of that document 
which I confess discouraged me not a little, and induced 
me almost to despair of being able to attain any bene- 
ficial end by communicating with you farther upon the 
very interesting subject to which I had previously called 
your attention. But, on farther reflection, in considera- 
tion of the vast public interests involved, and the fearful 
consequences which are, in my judgment, sure to result 
from the farther prosecution of the pending war, I have 
concluded, with your consent, to offer, in this form, a few 



EFFORTS TO OBTAIN PEACE. 397 

additional observations, which will, I trust, be at least re- 
ceived in the disinterested and patriotic spirit in which 
they are presented. 

" ' Though it is true that I am at this moment a "pris- 
oner" (a"' voluntary one) in the hands of the government 
with which you stand so honorably connected, and in the 
establishment of which my own venerated ancestors par- 
ticipated, yet it is, as I conceive, neither just nor gracious 
to refer to me as being at present ^^ an insurgent^'' seeing 
that, as I have heretofore endeavored to explain, I am no 
longer, in any sense, a 'participant in the war now waging 
against the government of the United States, and have, 
some time ago, voluntarily and deliberately disconnected 
myself, for the gravest and most satisfactory reasons (pub- 
licly assigned at the time), from the monstrous and intol- 
erable despotism now existing in the city of Eichmond 
under the name of the government of "the Confederate 
States of America." I beg you to be assured that no one 
could be more fully advised than I am that Mr. Davis, 
and those officially associated with him, have most shame- 
lessly and criminally abandoned, and trampled under 
foot, all the principles and objects for the maintenance 
or furtherance of which they had heretofore avowed to 
the world that it had become necessary to secede from the 
Federal Union, and in the absence of which pretext for a 
measure so insane and ruinous it is certain the}^ would 
never have been able to delude a generous and confiding 
people into a conflict so palpably unequal in its character, 
with a government, too, beneath the paternal shelter of 
which all their rights and liberties had been so long and 
so efficiently protected and guaranteed. I should not 



398 SCYLLA AND CHAEYBDIS. 

now be addressing yoa did I not know of a verity that 
state-rights and state sovereignty no longer exist south 
of the Potomac River; that in that once happy but now 
forlorn region freedom of speech, freedom of the press, 
the right of jury trial, and, in fact, all the muniments of 
civil liberty most highly prized in countries actually free, 
are completely prostrated ; that corruption and imbecil- 
ity sit grimly enthroned where it was once fondly hoped 
that virtue and ability would exercise supreme sway, and 
that a selfish, hypocritical, and tyrannical executive chief, 
unblushingly sanctioned and sustained by a servile and 
incompetent Congress, has well-nigh deprived a high-spir- 
ited and eminently chivalrous people of all ground of 
hope as to their own future safety and happiness. The 
egregious mismanagement of all the departments of gov- 
ernment ; the general spread of demoralization in all of- 
ficial circles ; a series of the most appalling reverses, the 
greater number of which it is evident might, with the 
proper exercise of circumspection and energy, have been 
easily avoided, and nearly every one of which is directly 
traceable to the unpardonable intermeddling of a vain 
and obstinate president, who, in some unaccountable way, 
has become possessed of the unfounded notion that he is 
himself a man of superior military capacity ; the unsea- 
sonable and injudicious displacement of military com- 
manders of real ability and high merit in other respects, 
to make way for others who had but little claim to re- 
spect, save such as may arise from their known devotion 
to him whose smile is the sure guarantee of promotion, 
and whose frown is the certain precursor of of&cial de- 
gradation — these causes, conjoined with a multitude of 



EFFORTS TO OBTAIN PEACE. 899 

others quite easy to be specified, a detail of whicli on this 
occasion is not at all necessary, have at length compelled 
the people of the Confederate States, alike in the army 
and out of it, to relinquish all hope of separate independ- 
ence under the management of Mr. Davis, who is, not- 
withstanding, fixed npon them irremovably for the next 
three years by the Constitution itself to which he owes 
his authority. 

" ' Indeed, I am fully prepared to establish the fact, by 
testimony of the most reliable character, that a large ma- 
jority of the more enlightened citizens of the South have 
at last come to the conclusion, in which I confess that I 
do for one most fully concur, that, should they be ever* 
so successful in the prosecution of the war now in prog- 
ress, they vfould find themselves at the end of it an en- 
slaved and wretched people, and that Soidhern independ- 
ence^ at one time so thoughtlessly coveted and so zealous- 
ly striven for, would be, if attained, precisely the most 
deplorable calamity which could possibly befall them ; 
since they deem it now most clear that separate independ- 
ence would of necessity imply continuous border wars; 
the keeping on foot of two antagonist standing armies 
for protection against territorial invasion, constantly in 
such a condition of things to be apprehended ; and ul- 
timately, perchance even very soon, the establishment 
of two of the most relentless despotisms that have ever 
existed. These melancholy views, I assure you, have be- 
com.e of late very general in the South, where even the 
very name of secession has recently grown odious, and 
where Davis and his wicked comrades in mischief are 
fast coming to be hated and distrusted ; where, indeed, a 



400 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

complete counter-revolutio7i would be inevitably seen to 
occur immediately, could it be in some way or other sat- 
isfactorily ascertained that it was not really the intention 
of President Lincoln and his constitutional advisers to 
subjugate and enslave those with whom they are now con- 
tending in arms. Let me here repeat, that if, with the 
ostensible consent of the states and people of the North, 
President Lincoln should conclude to issue such a procla- 
mation as I have heretofore described, tendering amnesty, 
gradual emancipation, etc., etc., the influential and effi- 
cient public men, in behalf of whom I am empowered to 
speak, and in accordance with whose earnest solicitation 
I am now acting, will undertake to bring about such coun- 
ter-revolution at once, by conventional action, against the 
Davis despotism, and guarantee the restoration of Federal 
authority, thus putting an end to this most grievous and 
sanguinary struggle, and restoring once more cordial am- 
ity and good-fellowship among those from whose bosoms 
these sentiments have been long since banished. 

" ' I beseech you not to be persuaded to doubt the ef- 
fectual execution of the pledge here given by the fact 
that President Davis and his policy are at present appar- 
ently sustained by a majority in the two houses of the 
Confederate Congress, which bodies are not, and never 
have been, and never now can be, the reliable exponents 
of Southern public sentiment. I solemnly aver that in 
the declaration I am now making I am in unison with 
the judgments and wishes of the great mass of the South- 
ern people, who will cordially unite with me, upon the 
terms and conditions specified, in restoring at once the 
authority of the Federal government over all Southern 
territory. 



EFFORTS TO OBTAIN TEACE. 401 

'' ' The late experiment at ixicification reported to have 
been essayed upon the soil of the " Ancient Dominion" 
by Messrs. Stephens, Campbell, and Hunter, should, in my 
judgment, by no means discourage the true friends of 
peace. Could it, indeed, have been reasonably expected 
that these worthy gentlemen, however abounding in qual- 
ifications of every sort, and however desirous to behold 
an early termination of the war upon almost any honora- 
ble terms (as I chance to know that at least two of them 
do), would be permitted by Mr. Davis to reach the desig- 
nated place of conference except under such stringent in- 
structions as would necessarily prevent them from either 
proposing or acceding to any terms of pacification which 
could by any possibility in the least degree compromise 
the position and plans of their selfish and intriguing prin- 
cipal ? Could Mr. Davis himself be expected to consent, 
through Messrs. Stephens, Campbell, and Hunter, to any 
terms of settlement which would forever do away with 
the soi-disant Confederate government, and thus bring to 
naught his long-cherished notions of imperial greatness ? 

" 'You will allow me to suggest farther, that it seems 
to me that it would have been not less unreasonable to 
expect that the ultra pro-slavery men of the South, Mr. Da- 
vis, Mr. Hunter, et id omne genus, who had so long and so 
fiercely made the universal establishment and mainte- 
nance of African slavery throughout all the vacant terri- 
tory of the old Union not only a test of party fidelity, 
but a sine qua iwn also to the continued existence of that 
very Union itself, and who had so recently, and with such 
a fanciful ambition for scenic display, abdicated their 
seats in the Federal Congress avowedly because they fear- 



402 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

eel that Mr. Lincoln's election to the presidency, though 
in a perfectly constitutional mode, would in^ some way 
compromise their favorite institution, would now be found 
acquiescmg with any thing like a graceful and becoming 
readiness in the overthrow of slavery in all the states of 
the South, under circumstances which will more than 
justify the future historian of this unhappy struggle in 
fixing upon themselves the responsibility of having initi- 
ated measures which have alone generated the sad neces- 
sity of submitting to a fate which but a limited amount 
of foresight and practical good sense would have so easily 
averted. 

"'The sovereign people of the South, in behalf of 
whom I am now addressing you, do, on the other hand, 
however painfully, recognize the existing condition of 
things as one from which, though they had no special 
agency in producing it, there are no present means of es- 
cape ; and being therefore prepared to acquiesce in it 
with something of a philosophic cheerfulness, and with 
that sober and practical intelligence for which they have 
been ever heretofore distinguished, are at this moment 
casting about for some means of alleviating the discom- 
forts and inconveniences which have been brought upon 
them by instrumentalities which, in their operation, seem 
more or less to resemble the mysterious dispensations of 
an overruling Providence. The appeal foi- peace^ then, on 
the part of President Lincoln, as Pater Patrice^ should be 
to the people themselves, and in the most direct manner 
possible, whose response thereto I am certain would be 
such as I am persuaded you do really so anxiously de- 
sire. 



EFFORTS TO OBTAIN PEACE, 403 

" ' I know that it is urged by certain persons in the 
North — in the same manner, bj-the-bj, as a similar view, 
mutatis mutandis^ is presented by certain vaporing news- 
paper scribblers and half-witted legislative declaimers in 
the Confederate Congress — that Grrant, and Sherman, and 
the valiant armies under their command are the best and 
only reliable ][>acificatoTs. Indeed, I can not think so. 
These distinguished generals (and I am not one of those 
who have undervalued the capacity of either of them) 
may perchance be able to overrun and devastate the 
whole South ; they may find it in their power to estab- 
lish absolute military rule throughout the entire length 
and breadth of the Confederate States. But will this, I 
pray you, be the restoration of the Union of our fatliers? 
Will this redintegrate amicable feelings between the peo- 
ple of the North and the people of the South? Will 
this secure permanent concord between the two sections ? 
Will this, in short, secure such a hearty and perfect com- 
bination and commixture of all the energies and resources 
of the great Anglo-American family on that noble con- 
tinent which God has so evidently allotted to them as 
their own destined inheritance^ as will enable them to real- 
ize, in all its vividness and plenitude, the consummation 
of what our venerable friend. General Cass, in former 
days, was accustomed so solemnly and so significantly to 
indicate, when he spoke so inspiringly of what he called 
the ^^ manifest destinf of our noble and heroic race? Let 
me ask of you whether it would be quite politic — wheth- 
er it would be altogether just — whether it would be gen- 
erous needlessly and wantonly to mortify the lofty and 
manly pride, and cruelly extinguish or even enfeeble the 



404 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

noble self-respect of a liigh-minded and tlirice-valorons 
people ? Indeed, indeed, sir, I can not at all conjecture 
how any man worthy to be recognized as a statesman^ or 
who aspires to the honor of being classed among enlight- 
ened Christian philanthropists even, can possibly respond 
to all of these important interrogatories save with a most 
emphatic negative. 

" ' You, sir, placed me under special and lasting obliga- 
tions by your kind and gentlemanly civilities to my wife 
when, on a late occasion, it was her fortune to visit Wash- 
ington City as a refugee from oppression, under circum- 
stances not a little painful and embarrassing. For this 
accept my cordial thanks. Should a bounteous Provi- 
dence inspire you with such liberal and manly views as*, 
when fully acted out, shall rescue this once-happy repub- 
lic from the multiplied horrors of civil war, you will earn, 
and will doubtless receive also, the grateful homage of 
countless generations yet unborn, and even those who 
now hate and revile you will be heard (if I can at all ac- 
curately descry the future) to bless and to honor your 
name. 

'' ' Before concluding, I hope you will pardon me for 
saying that while, for various reasons, it would be alto- 
gether repugnant to my sense of duty to do any thing 
injurious to my Southern countrymen, it is my fixed in- 
tention to remain altogether ^asszve as to the future, being 
quite content, if my absence from the country shall be 
deemed desirable, to be a sojourner in foreign lands un- 
til my returning once more to a land that I so dearly 
love shall be deemed no longer objectionable. 

" ' I have the honor to be your obedient servant, 

" ' II. S. FOOTE.' 



EFFORTS TO OBTAIN PEACE. 405 

"Having handed this letter to General Dix and re- 
ceived his promise that it should be transmitted to Wash- 
ington immediately, I remained in New York a day or 
two only, and, having engaged my passage to Liverpool, 
was almost in the act of setting out upon my destined 
voyage, when Colonel Ludlow, of General Dix's staff, 
came on board the steam-ship where I was, and handed 
me a note from Mr. Seward to the general, requesting him 
to advise me that my second communication had just 
been placed in the hands of President Lincoln for his con- 
sideration. Having no special reason for supposing that 
this second letter had been more favorably received than 
the former one had been, with great solicitude of mind I 
■ set sail. After the lapse of several days I determined to 
write to Mr. Lincoln as follows : 

" ' On hoard the Mail Steamer Clfi/ of Cork, ) 
February 21, 1865. ) 

" • His Excellency Abraham Lincoln^ President of the 
United States of America : 
" 'Sir, — It is with some hesitation that I venture to 
address you. We are personally strangers to each other, 
and I am quite conscious that I have no special claims to 
your kindly regard, and still less, if possible, to your 
political confidence. But the Hon. Wm. H. Seward hav- 
ing, in his official capacity, politely caused me to be in- 
formed, through the Military Commandant at New York, 
General John A. Dix (just as I was setting out for Liver- 
pool, whither I am now voyaging), that my last epistolary 
communication to him had been placed in your hands for 
consideration, as a former one had been ; being sensible 
likewise that, in the very hasty preparation of both these 



-iOB ' SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

communications, I had left almost wholly untouched sev- 
eral topics which might possibly with advantage be some- 
what more fully developed — at the hazard of being re- 
garded by you as both obtrusive and pertinacious, and 
by others, perchance, as foolishly sanguine and fanciful, 
I shall now proceed to subjoin one or two additional 
suggestions upon the momentous subject of peace and 
the restoration of the Federal Union. I write to you 
from mid-ocean, while the stormy billows of the surround- 
ing sea are every moment painfully reminding me of that 
fearful scene of commotion and turmoil which I have left 
behind me, in a land once so peaceful and happy, but now 
marked so woefully with ravage and the copious shedding 
of fraternal blood in civil strife. Sir, allow me to say, in 
all earnestness and sincerity, that in my opinion the an- 
cient classic poets have aot described Neptune himself as 
having more power, as the grand composer of the waves 
of the vexed and raging ocean, than you now possess, in 
your high official character, for calming the troubles which 
at present so deplorably convulse the enlightened and 
patriotic freemen who inhabit our own native America. 
You hold the trident of pacification in your hands ; may it 
be wielded with true benevolence and wisdom, and in the 
genuine Washingtonian spirit ! 

" ' I have heretofore suggested for your consideration 
that the resolution now before the United States Con- 
gress, proposing an amendment of the Federal Constitu- 
tion, should itself, if possible, be so modified, before its 
final incorporation into that instrument, as to provide for 
the gradual or prospective emancipation of the slaves of 
the South, in lieu of the plan, now propounded, of imme- 



EFFORTS TO OBTAIN PEACE. 4,07 

cliate abolition. It seems to me that the examples which 
have been heretofore supplied by several of the free states 
of the North themselves (the anxiety of whose people to 
rid themselves, as soon as conveniently practicable, of a 
system which had grown exceedingly odious, and whose 
admitted practical wisdom in regard to all matters apper- 
taining to mere economical concerns fit them admirably 
for the attainment of sound views upon such a question 
as that under consideration) might well encourage the 
hope that, if seasonable endeavors were essayed, it might 
not yet be found impossible to obtain the consent of all 
those states to such a change in the resolution of amend- 
ment above referred to as, for many reasons additional to 
those heretofore stated, I regard as in the highest degree 
desirable. The inevitable derangement of the complex 
system of agricultural labor hitherto existing in the South, 
which all must perceive will be the result of the immedi- 
ate emancipation of the whole mass of slaves now engaged 
in the cultivation of Southern plantations; the inconven- 
iences and sufferings sure to result to all classes of South- 
ern population from the putting in operation at once of a 
new system of labor heretofore wholly untried in the cot- 
ton-growing states of the South, without allowing the least 
time for preparing to meet such a prodigious shock to the 
planting interests located therein, and for the providing of 
comfortable arrangements in favor of the liberated slaves 
themselves, it would really seem might well incline our 
Northern fellow-citizens, if appealed to in time, to consent 
to such an alteration in th<*ir plan of emancipation as 
would be likely, while avoiding the fearful consequences 
alluded to, to prevent also those feelings of heart-burning 



408 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

and grave discontent — yea, even of resentment itself — 
which would, even should the Federal Union be perma- 
nently restored, render the future relations of the two 
sections hereafter any thing but mutually agreeable and 
advantageous. If, as I shrewdly suspect will turn out to 
be the case, a sufiicient number of the states shall not be 
found to have given their sanction to the proposed con- 
stitutional amendment to make it part of the organic law, 
why, allow me to ask, shall not the form of amendment 
heretofore so earnestly pressed by me upon your attention 
be at once acquiesced in ? Why should not you, Mr. 
President, yourself propose it ? Why should you not in 
this way secure the peaceful extinction of slavery, by the 
unanimous vote of all the states, both North and South ? 
Why, in other words, shall you not become the grand 
reconciler of contending factions? Why should you not 
aspire to become the second founder of the republic ? 

" 'Kecollect, I beseech you, sir, that the Southern Ex- 
tremists, unwise as has been their action, are not the only 
offenders against the cause of the Federal Union; that 
other factionists, influenced by strong sectional feeling, 
by a strange and astounding concordid discors, co-operated 
most fatally in the production of the present melancholy 
state of affairs. Suppose we " lei hy-gones he hy-gones ;'''' let 
us be friends and brethren once more upon principles 
which will justify a reasonable hope that our voluntary 
reunion may \>q permanent. 

'' 'I have, in the course of the present correspondence, 
once or twice incidentally alluded to the celebrated Mon- 
roe doctrine as presenting, alike to the states of the North 
and those of the South, a means of cordial reconcilement 



EFFORTS TO OBTAIN PEACE. 409 

and of future prosperity and strength. Let me say liere, 
in addition, that I deem it one of the most fortunate cir- 
cumstances which could be possibly imagined that such 
an opportunity of doing away forever with sectional dis- 
trust and animosity, and oi consolidating the national Union^ 
should have been thus seasonably afforded, as this same 
Monroe doctrine has so remarkably supplied. Just rec- 
ollect, if you please, that the favorite idea of all the ven- 
erated fathers of American liberty, in the earlier days of 
the republic, was, that the moral ascendency as well as 
physical domination of the Anglo-American race, their 
peculiar institutions of gove'rnment, and their social mor- 
als, were to be ultimately coextensive with the great con- 
tinent itself where it is our fortune to be located. Bear 
in mind, also, that it is essential to the progress of liberal 
sentiment in this hemisphere, the healthful and beneficial 
advancement of science, and all the useful and elevating 
arts of civilized existence, that a cordial consociation and 
co-operation of energies of every kind should be in some 
way effectually secured, with a view to the attainment of 
the great end in contemplation ; and I can not at all doubt 
that you will fully agree with me in the opinion that it is 
indeed the voice of true wisdom and of enlightened pat- 
riotism also, which invokes, which entreats you, with an 
earnestness not known to the selfish votaries of faction, 
to seize at once the golden opportunity which an all- 
bounteous Providence has so fortunately presented to you 
of becoming not only the restorer of your countrj^'s hap- 
piness, but the vindicator also of the principles of civil 
and religious freedom in our own favored hemisphere. 
" 'Doubt not, I pray you, that the chivalrous sons of the 



410 SCYLLA AND CHAEYBDIS. 

South will, if justly and liberally treated in this the day 
of their sore travail and suffering, second you in all your 
exertions to maintain the Monroe doctrine in all its pri- 
meval scope and vigor. They know the history of that 
doctrine well, and it stands associated with many of their 
proudest and most inspiring recollections. They remem- 
ber that though in theory originating in the generous bo- 
som and expanded and far-reaching intellect of a renown- 
ed British statesman, the lamented George Canning* (sus- 

* "Those who have made themselves familiar with the parliamentary 
life of Mr. Canning will not regard me as at all overstating his conduct 
on this important subject. Hansard'S' 'Parliamentary Debates' show that 
this truly upright and courageous British statesmaii not only acted the 
part attributed to him above, but that he, more than once, on very strik- 
ing occasions, warmly felicitated himself upon having done so. His mem- 
orable declaration in Parliament, that he had called into existence new 
states in the Western Hemisphere 'in order to redress the balance of pow- 
er disturbed in the East,' is of course remembered by all the admirers of 
this great master of speech. It is, perhaps, not known to all that, as ear- 
ly as the month of August, 1823, Mr. Canning, in an interview with Mr. 
Rush, the American minister near tlie court of St, James at that period, 
urged that the United States should imitc with Great Britain in a formal 
declaration against any of the Continental powers of Europe being allovv- 
cd to take possession of any portion of the territory of the American con- 
tinent then recently rescued from Spain. Referring to the designs sus- 
pected at that time to be entertained by France in particular, he stated to 
Mr. Rush that he 'was satisfied that the knowledge that the United States 
would be opposed to it as well as England could not fail to have a de- 
cisive influence in checking it.' In a letter to Mr. Rush, written a few 
days after this noted intervicAV, he said, referring to the apprehended trans- 
fer of Mexico to France, that Great Britain, while unwilling to interfere 
with any eiforts on the part of Spain to repossess herself of her ancient 
colonial possessions, ' could not see the transfer of any portion to any oth- 
er power with indifference.' In several other letters this view of the sub- 
ject was earnestly presented by Mr. Canning to Mr. Rush, who was at last 
persuaded to concur with him, and to bring the subject, as he did in a very 



EFFORTS TO OBTAIN PEACE. 411 

tained, if my memory serve me faithfully, in this the most 

forcible manner, to the consideration of Mr. Monroe and his cabinet. The 
promulgation of what is known as ' The Monroe doctrine' was the result. 
Mr. Monroe, in a message to Congress, expressed himself as follows : 
'With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European poicer we 
have not interfered and shall not interfere ; but icith the goveriiments icho 
have declared their independence^ and viainlaiyied it, and icliose independence 
we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknoioledrjcd, we could 
not view any interposition for the j^urpose of oppressing them or controlling 
their destiny, by any Uuroj^ean ]>ower, in any other light than as a manifesta- 
tion of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.' Keferring to 
this very message, Lord Brougham, then a member of the House of Com- 
mons, said, 'The question with regard to South America now was, he be- 
lieved, disposed of, or nearly so ; for an event had recently happened, than 
which no event had ever dispersed greater joy, exultation, and gratitude 
over all the free men of Europe ; that event, which Avas decisive on the 
subject, was the language held with respect to Spanish America in the 
speech or message of the President of the United States to Congress.' 
Sir James Mcintosh, in one of his noblest speeches, alluding to the same 
message of Mr. Monroe, said, ' This wise government, in grave but determ- 
ined language, and with that reasonable but deliberate tone that becomes 
true courage, proclaims the principles of her polic}', and makes known the 
cases in which the care of her own safety will compel her to take up arms 
for the defense of other states. I have already observed its coincidence 
with the declarations of England, which, indeed, is perfect, if allowance be 
made for the deeper, or, at least, more immediate interest in the independ- 
ence of South America, which near neighborhood gives to the United 
States. This coincidence of the two great English commomvealths (for so 
I delight to call them, and I heartily pray that they may be forever tinited 
in the cause o^ justice and liberty) can not be contemplated without the 
utmost pleasure by every enlightened citizen of the earth.' It is a very 
clear proposition that, if the Great Britain of to-day is the Great Britain 
of Mr. Canning's time (and who can doubt it?), that this same Monroe 
doctrine may yet become the nucleus of union and manly, efficient, co-op- 
erative energy among all who speak the English language in both hem- 
ispheres, and who cherish a true regard for the free institutions derived 
from a common ancestry. So mote it be! — II. S. F." 



412 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

glorious movement of his public life, by such men as a 
Brougham and a Mcintosh), yet that it is alike true that 
from the year 1828 up to the breaking out of the present 
unhappy war in 1861, every administration of the gov- 
ernment of which you are now the chief executive func- 
tionary has uniformly asserted and maintained this Magna 
Charta of the Western Hemisphere with a steady firmness 
and with undiminished zeal. John Quincy Adams, Dan- 
iel Webster, Lewis Cass, Millard Fillmore, James Buchan- 
an, President Pierce, and Edward Everett, of the North ; 
James Monroe, John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, William H. 
Crawford, Andrew Jackson, John Tyler, and James K. 
Polk, of the South, at different periods and in different 
modes, are well known to have signalized their devotion 
to the great American principle embodied in the far-famed 
Monroe doctrine ; and it is a little too late now to expect 
any considerable portion of the descendants of those great 
men, some of whom have gone down to the grave with 
so much honor, to relinquish those muniments of national 
safety and freedom which have been thus far so nobly 
maintained. 

" 'I venture to predict, Mr. President, that if such just 
and gracious treatment shall be now accorded to the South 
as her people have a clear right to demand in the adjust- 
ment of the terms upon which peace and union shall be 
once more restored, this same Monroe doctrine is destined 
shortly to become the effectual healer of sectional distem- 
;peratuTes — the sovereign uniter of hearts which should 
never have been divided — the veritable Macedonian 
sword itself, which, skillfully wielded, will yet be seen to 
cut asunder that Gordian knot of discord whijh has here- 



EFFORTS TO OBTAIN" PEACE. 413 

tofore so fearfully puzzled and perplexed even the most 
gifted of our statesmen. I shall not venture to specify 
all the noble results, whether present or prospective, 
which are now so obviously placed within reach of a 
lofty magnanimity and a wise statesmanship. There are 
certain delicate considerations connected with this deep- 
ly-interesting subject upon which I do not deem it at 
all expedient to enlarge. I have already, I fear, occu- 
pied more of your attention than you will consider alto- 
gether justifiable, and will therefore now conclude with 
assuring you that I am your obedient servant, 

'"H. S.FOOTE.' 

"On arriving in the city of London, I sat down to 
draw up this address to my valued neighbors and friends 
of Tennessee. It is not now my fortunate lot to see you 
face to face ; I ma}^ possibly never again have that satis- 
faction; but I intreat you, my countrymen and fellow- 
citizens, whatever may be the action of President Lin- 
coln and the politicians now in power in Washington 
City, upon the propositions submitted to them in this cor- 
respondence, that you will yourselves lose no time in re- 
turning to the bosom of the Federal Union. It is far 
better, in my deliberate opinion, that you should do so, 
and do so at once, than to take the chances of future mil- 
itary success under Jefferson Davis and his present of- 
ficial associates, and rely upon them for the future resto- 
ration of your liberties, after they shall have been once 
completely surrendered to the most unfeeling and de- 
grading despotism that has existed in the world since the 
days of Dionysius of Syracuse." 



4:14: SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

When I left the port of New York, in the month of 
February last, I expected to be absent only eight weeks. 
The pass2:>ort which I had received did not in express 
terms allow of my coming back to the United States un- 
less with the consent of the government ; but I did not 
in the least degree doubt that when President Lincoln 
should learn that I was again on American soil, and had 
come back alone for the purpose of adding ray personal per- 
suasions to those which Thad already addressed to my South- 
ern friends in hehalf of a ready and cheerful submission to 
Federal authority^ he would not fail to perceive that my 
motives and intentions were at least good, even if he should 
deem it prudent to reject my assistance in the work of 
pacification. Anticipating, as I did (which anticipation 
I had publicly avowed in the Confederate Congress pre- 
vious to the vacation of my seat in that body), that long 
before the month of April should expire General Lee 
would be compelled to surrender both Richmond and the 
gallant army which he commanded, and with the purpo- 
ses just named in view, I did not deem it safe to remain 
across the ocean more than two months ; so, after issuing 
the pamphlet referred to, I took a rapid tour through 
England, France, and Italy, and returned to New York 
only a day or two previous to the making known of the 
act of surrender in that city. Li relation to the obsta- 
cles which were so painfully and unexpectedly inter- 
posed to the full execution of this scheme I have nothing 
now to say in the way of complaint. 

I will now conclude this chapter by expressing the fer- 
vent hope which I feel that the day may not be far dis- 
tant when sectionalism and all its evil concomitants shall 



ADVICE TO THE SOUTHERN PEOPLE. 415 

cease to exist in our noble republic, and when union, 
concord, and confraternity may every where prevail in 
the land of Washington, of Jackson, of Webster, and of 

Clay.* 

* Last summer, while in Canada, having an opportunity, as I thought, 
of ascertaining what was likely to be the tone and temper of the present 
Congress, I took the liberty of admonishing my Southern fellow-country- 
men in regard to their own future course upon this all-important subject. 
I warned them that, in order to secure their own restoration to the civic 
rights of which the war had deprived them, it was indispensable that 
they should promptly, and without any appearance of imicillingness, grant 
all those reasonable concessions to those who had been liberated by the 
war as the government of the United States had undertaken to guaran- 
tee. I labored to show them -that the granting of these concessions could 
alone so strengthen the arm of the President as would enable him to 
shield them against the attempts making in certain quarters for their 
own permanent enslavement. I endeavored to make manifest to them 
the undoubted fact that Mr. Davis and the satellites by whom he was sur- 
rounded in Richmond, by obstinately refusing to allow any negotiations 
for peace to be set on foot at a time when large Confederate armies w^ere 
yet in the field, had placed them absolutely at the mercy of their con- 
quering foes, who had it in their power now to deal out to them, in all 
their harshness, the disabilities and discomforts which it is so often in 
war the fate of the conquered to suffer. I brought to their view the fact 
that those with whom they had been contending in arms stood solemnly 
pledged to the recently liberated blacks of the South that they should 
henceforth enpy freedoin, with all the means of preserving it; and I besought 
them, promptly and with as great an appearance of cheerfulness as possi- 
ble, that they would themselves formally grant liberty to those who had 
been in fact already virtually emancipated by the war, in such a form as 
to preserve the newly-enfranchised race from all possibility of being there- 
after resubjugated. I even went so far as to suggest that this course 
was alike necessary to be taken, in order to rescue the white millions of 
the South from a state of permanent degradation, as it was to the future 
concord and safety of the luhole population dwelling in what had been so 
long recognized as the slaveholding region, among whom feelings of mu- 



416 SCYLLA.AND CHARYBDIS. 

tual trust and kindness could not be reasonably expected ever to arise un- 
less all serious inequalities in civic riglds should be effectuallij done away. I 
regret to say that the course pursued in several of the states of the South 
in regard to this matter has not been such as might have been reasonably 
anticipated. By tardy and apparently reluctant action in the granting 
of those things which it is really not in their power ultimately to with- 
hold, several of the states referred to have, it is to be feared, greatly weak- 
ened their own position, and enfeebled the President, their only protector 
now, in his efiorts to serve them. How long they will, under the coun- 
sels of shallow and senseless demagogues, persevere in their present course, 
remains to be seen. For their own sake, and for the repose and happi- 
ness of the whole republic, I hope that in a week or two we shall learn 
that wiser and more considerate action has been finally adopted ; that, in 
consequence thereof, the Southern representatives and senators have been 
received in Congress ; that military organizations in the bosom of the 
states of the South have been dispensed with ; that the habeas corpus has 
been every where restored ; that all need for the Freedmen's Bureau has 
ceased ; and that perfect federative equality may be thus secured among 
all the states of this grand and glorious republic. 

While I now write, it is painful to learn that the Legislature of the 
State of Tennessee, a body elected by less than a third of the qualified 
voters of the state, the members of which have been heretofore claiming 
to be far more devoted to the cause of the Union than the hundreds of 
thousands of their fellow-citizens whom they obstinately hold in a state 
of cruel disfranchisement, and whom they are day by day driving, by intol- 
erable oppression, into exile, has deliberately refused to grant to persons 
of African descent the right to testify in courts of justice. This, I repeat, 
has been done by the Union men of Tennessee, par excellence the persons 
who are boasting every day that they are the zealous and faithful sup- 
porters of the President ! Now I undertake to say that such action as this 
is really more hostile, practically, to the avowed reconstruction policy of 
President Johnson than any thing besides which these individuals could 
possibly have done. / 

Outside of the state, I do not doubt that the whole people of Tennessee 
will be held responsible for the insane and illiberal conduct on this sub- 
ject, which I feel assured that a very large majority of those not now al- 
lowed by a despotic faction even to exercise the right of suffrage, were it 
in their power, would emphatically repudiate. 



PROMPT ACQUIESCENCE TRUE ^VISDOM. 417 

It is really astonishing to hear that men in this enlightened age should 
for a moment hesitate in regard to the propriety of allowing persons of 
African descent to testify in courts of justice, especially in cases where 
their own life, liberty, or property is involved. It is the most cruel mock- 
ery to call themyree, and yet deny this essential right; it is, moreover 
the most palpable and unblushing hypocrisi/. In the name of Heaven 
who could possibly be injured by such an act of simple justice in behalf 
of an unhappy race who have long submitted cheerfully to bondage and 
who have only accepted liberty when it has been tendered to them ? Ev- 
ery lawyer of philosophic mind would say at once, that to allow freedmen 
to testify, in any case, would be attended with no evil consequence what- 
ever to those who were free from nativity. Each witness brought into 
court to give evidence would be necessarily subjected to examination and 
cross-examination, and an astute and unprejudiced jury would then de- 
termine how far such evidence was entitled to credence. I can well im- 
agine a thousand cases in which this same right to testify might, in its ex- 
ercise, be eminently beneficial to white citizens — yea, lives might be saved 
from the scaffold, character be rescued from undeserved discredit, and 
the most valuable property rights be secured from destruction, by the ve- 
racious, manly, and unprejudiced testimony of one who had himself been 
born a slave. It is heartlessly unjust to the black man to assert that he 
is less a respecter of truth and less inclined to the exercise of justice than 
the white man. I have lived among this race all my life, and what I now 
sny on this subject is the fruit of more than half a century's experience 
and observation. 

At any rate, I now feel authorized again to declare to that portion of 
my fellow-countrymen of the South who are still perilously tampering 
with this delicate and important matter, that there is no possible ground 
for hoping that the white men of the South will themselves be restored to 
their suspended civic rights until they consent themselves to do justice to 
others. 

1^ By-the-by, I see that the Freedmen's Bureau has been given (and 
rightfully too) increased powers in the State of Tennessee, in consequence 
of this strange conduct on the part of the Legislature. 

S2 



418 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 



CHAPTER XYIII. 

Observations mainly upon the Facts recited in the preceding Chapters. 

I PROPOSE now to bring this volume to a conclusion 
with the presentation of a few additional observations^ hav- 
ing reference, either direct or indirect, to facts already 
brought to notice, or to others too obvious and familiar 
to have required an earlier specification. 

1. No clearer proposition could, in my judgment, be 
possibly stated than the one insisted on so emphatically 
in all that I have heretofore written, that the war, from 
the devastation and suffering of which the country is now 
slowly emerging, did not necessarily grow out of the fact 
that African slavery existed in the South, and did not 
exist in the North, and that there was not really any thing 
worthy the notice of a philosophic mind in the fact that, 
while white men and white women in the North per- 
formed the greater part of all the rougher physical labor, 
and voluntarily^ this was done in the South chiefly by 
persons of a black or broivn complexion, and after the 
manner that has been called involuntary. The truth is, 
that the opposition to the continuance of African slavery 
in the region wherein it has just become extinct, as the 
inevitable result of the war that has been for four years 
raging, was confined in the North to, comparatively 
speaking, a very small number of persons, and still few- 
er of these were, until very recently at least, possessed of 



NO TRREPEESSIBLE CONFLICT. 419 

any large amount of influence over tlie general public 
mind of the country. Outside of small fanatical and po- 
litical cliques, there was not, even as late as five years 
ago, any strong antagonism of sentiment between the slave- 
holding and the non-slaveholding sections of the repub- 
lic. As for any antagonism of pecuniary interest in con- 
nection with Southern slaveholding, the ascertained exist- 
ence of which, as a source of large pecuniary gain, if be- 
lieved also to be permanent, might, in an age so merce- 
nary as ours, prove, perhaps, to some extent, productive 
of a sort of reciprocal rivalry of feeling, this is the merest 
phantom that ever vexed the over-fevered brain of a fan- 
ciful visionary. The pecuniary interests of the North 
and South, in connection with slaveholding, it is true, 
were not identical^ but so far were they also from being 
confliciinc] and irreconcilahle^ that they were positively in 
perfect accord with each other, and were, anterior to the 
war, constantly multiplying and intensifying ties of sym- 
pathetic kindness between the two sections. There is no 
necessary antagonism between the blacksmith and the 
miller, the fisherman and the hunter of game, the culti- 
vator of the land and the mariner who plows the fields 
of ocean. On the contrary, all of them, and a thousand 
diverse but not necessarily hostile classes besides, may not 
only subsist in quiet as members of the same community, 
but their very differences of employment, leading them 
naturally into the interested reciprocation of the respective 
products of their labor, must necessarily generate amity 
instead of hostility. It is quite safe to affirm that, ante- 
rior to the war, there was more capital in the North than 
in the South dependent for its profitable employment 



420 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

upon tlie African slaveholding system. The growers of 
cotton, sugar, tobacco, and other slave-raised products in 
the South, though their multiplied responsibilities, moral 
as well as physical, were indeed most burdensome, de- 
rived far less of clear profit from the outlay of their capi- 
tal than did the merchants and manufacturers of the 
North, and the other numerous classes dependent upon 
them. The truth of this statement was alike manifest in 
innumerable instances of individual fortune in the North, 
arising, directly or indirectly, from the slaveholding sys- 
tem — in the rapid and unprecedented growth of large 
commercial marts, and in the innumerous ramifications 
of manufacturing industry. It is said in Holy Writ that 
" where a man's treasure is, there will his heart be also," 
and thus it undoubtedly was in the case under consider- 
ation. It was not in nature for those who were, daily 
and hourly, over the whole North, becoming richer and 
richer from the cultivation of Southern soil by the sons 
and daughters of Africa, to cherish feelings of illiberal 
hatred for those whose skillful and vigilant administra- 
tion of a system to them so productive of gain was con- 
stantly increasing the aggregate quantity of their wealth, 
and with it the means of luxurious accommodation, of 
extended influence, and of magnificent liberality. There 
are many who write and speak on this subject, and who., 
speak and write, too, most flippantly and plausibly, who 
really imagine because tJiey^ before the war, hated the 
slaveholding system of the South, the whole people of 
the North did the same thing. There never was a great- 
er mistake committed. I have had in my time much in- 
terest in looking into the truth of this matter, and have 



COREECTION OF A SERIOUS ERROR. 421 

enjoyed good opportunities too of finding out actual facts, 
and I aver now that it is my solemn and fixed conviction 
that there were not, five years ago, two twentieths of the 
whole Northern population who would not have greatly 
preferred slavery to continue in the South for an indefi- 
nite period, to participating, in the least degree, in its sud- 
den extinction. It is, indeed, not at all important to dis- 
cuss this matter at present with a view to the possible re- 
vival of African slavery in the South at any future time. 
The man any where who calculates upon such a revival 
is not far from being a fit subject for some insane asy- 
lum. African slavery in the South is indeed gone for- 
ever, and I am confident that there are not one thousand 
intelligent persons in that region, of all the former slave- 
holding class, who would now resuscitate this defunct 
system if they had it ever so much in their power to do 
so. But it is important that the large and influential 
class in the South who were former owners of slaves, and 
who for many years to come will undoubtedly exercise a 
most potential influence there, should be assured, in an 
authentic and satisfactory manner, that the destruction of 
their property was not deliberately sought by a majority 
of their Northern fellow-citizens, but that their present 
condition — so far, at least, as any one in the North is re- 
sponsible for it — is the result of influences originally very 
feeble and limited in their scope of operation, and whose 
capacity for mischief has been supplied in a great degree 
by the indiscretion and overweening ambition of individ- 
uals holding high official position among themselves. 
Secession is chiefly ciccountable for the destruction of African 
slavery. The combined action of extremists of the North 



422 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

and of the Soutli brought on the war, which a few feeble 
abolitionists could never have created; and, in a mo- 
ment of unparalleled folly, the only solid guarantee that 
it was possible in the nature of things that this anoma- 
lous and world-hated system could possess, viz., the Con- 
stitution of the United States, with the consent of the 
slaveholdmg class themselves, was cast aside, and is now 
lost to it forever! This result though, should not now, 
and I am well assured it will not be hereafter, a source 
of permanent regret to the white population of the South. 
They will, indeed, be far better off in time to come loith- 
out slavery than iviih it They will be relieved from a 
most painful and perplexing responsibility. If the new 
system of agricultural labor shall, succeed (and all good 
citizens must earnestly desire that it should), the whole 
Southern people will be far more prosperous hereafter 
than they have been heretofore. Labor in the South will 
be more diversified, and be likely to yield more solid ben- 
efits of every kind. Manufacturing and mineral industry 
too will be now seen to flourish, for the first time, in that 
great and prolific region, and even Southern commerce 
may hereafter attain a more healthful and self-sup2^orting 
existence. But no man need expect less antagonisms of 
interest hereafter to be manifested between the North and 
the South than have heretofore prevailed; and if certain 
people who are now making a great noise in particular 
Northern vicinages can have their own way, in spite of 
all that the beneficent wisdom of government can do, it 
is to be feared that antagonisms of feeling, " imbedded" 
in the moral constitutions of bis^oted and narrow-minded 
zealots, may breed new and fatal discords and conten- 



MUTUAL FORBEAliANCE RECOMMENDED. 423 

tions where peace and happiness might be restored, and 
continue permanently to abide. 

2. There surely never was a time when mutual for- 
bearance and moderation were more necessary to be ex- 
ercised on the part of good and patriotic men, both North 
and South, than at present, when certain editors of the 
South are urging that none of the reasonable concessions 
demanded by the President at the hands of his fellow- 
citizens of that section shall be yielded by them, without 
which the only being on earth who can restore them to 
their forfeited rights and privileges will be utterly pow- 
erless for their relief; and when one or two editors in 
the North, whose newspapers are stated to have a very 
wide circulation, are vehemently insisting that the con- 
stitutional amendment now proposed, if adojoted, would 
give to the Federal government absolute control over all 
the domestic concerns of the states, and thus inevitably 
organize an imperial despotism in Washington City. 
The fight between the two bands of sectional extremists, 
which is still lingering, is the only circumstance at pres- 
ent existing which would seem calculated to renew the 
dangers to which the liberties of the country have been 
for four years subjected by an unnecessary and impolitic 
war. All truly reasonable and patriotic men in either 
section will be inclined to say to the President (as the 
leader of those now so happily co-operating with him 
in the putting down of extremists both North and South), 

"In medio tutissimus ibis." 

3. Cicero, in several of his incomparable epistles, ex- 
presses his conviction that if Caesar, after the termination 
of the great civil war in which Pompey had perished, 



424 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

should be allowed an opportunity of putting in exercise 
his own generous wishes, he would gradually, and by 
such means as were open to him, restore the ancient Con- 
stiiuiion ofRome^ioith its curious and complex system of 
checks and balances. Julius Caesar himself was far too 
profound and discerning a statesman to suppose that any 
man could accomplish a work so difScult m an instant^ 
especially when there were still a few men every where 
to be found in whose bosoms the spirit of revolt was ever 
ready to rekindle, and while the mercenary and selfish 
members of his own faction were constantly crying out 
for neio confiscations and executions. Improvident and 
short-sighted politicians destroyed Caesar's life by assas- 
sination before his beneficent plan of restoration could be 
accomphshed ; civil war was renewed, and, lo ! Augus- 
tus, Tiberius, Caligula, and a host of bloody tyrants be- 
side, succeeded. History is constantly repeating itself; 
unfortunately, though, her oracles are either not listened 
to or are received in unwilling ears. Oh^ mij country ! 

4. A little more than twelve months ago, I introduced 
in the Confederate Congress at Eichmond resolutions as- 
sertive of the Monroe doctrine^ as embodying the true pol- 
icy of all the friends of freedom in this hemisphere. Sev- 
eral newspapers of the South took me very pointedly to 
task on account of these same resolutions, charging me, 
in fact, with having made a movement toward reconstruc- 
tion. Who could then have believed that, within a few 
months from that time, men high in Confederate confi- 
dence, and ultra advocates of state-rights and state sover- 
eignty, would voluntarily fly beyond the limits of the 
only reliable republic on earth to seek protection at the 



GRADUAL EMANCIPATION. 425 

hands of a confessed desj^ot^ and give suck aid as it might 
be in their power to supply in the propping up of the 
tottering imperial throne of an Austrian usurper — thus 
consigning to the most degrading servitude the upright, 
gallant, and persecuted supporters of republican institu- 
tions in unfortunate, down-trodden Mexico ! 
tempora I mores ! 
5. Since the question whether the existence of African 
slavery shall or shall not continue on this continent is 
no"^ forever settled; since there are but few among those 
who were formerly interested therein who would now, 
after all that has been occurring for a twelve-month past, 
be willing to have it restored, it may be permitted to me 
to say, that I shall always be of opinion that the adoption 
of a plan oi gradual emancipation^ instead of the one now 
in operation, would have been far better for all concerned. 
For then the great shock to the planting operations of the 
South — which all now admit to be very serious indeed, 
the whole effect of which, too, is yet to be ascertained — 
would have been avoided ; those who are now freedmen 
might have been kindly and skillfully prepared for the 
great change which was ultimately to occur in their con- 
dition, and most of the difficulties with which President 
Johnson has had to contend, but which he has met with 
such manly energy and resolution, would have been hap- 
pily avoided; and the Southern people, coming back vol- 
tmtarily into the Union by a peaceful counter-revolution 
most easy to have been effected at the time, and taking 
it upon themselves the restoration of domestic concord 
and the dominion of law, reconstruction would have oc- 
curred in a manner to have left no heart-burnings be- 



426 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

hind, and secession^ overcome as it would infallibly have 
been by the cheerfully-exerted energies of the deluded 
masses themselves, would have been as thoroughly derac- 
inated and destroyed as the most devoted Unionist could 
possibly have desired. Hereafter the whole world will 
learn how easy of execution this counter-revolutionary 
project would have been. 

6. It is curious to observe that some of the champions 
of abolition are claiming all the credit of overthrowing 
slavery in the South. Now the destruction of this sys- 
tem was undoubtedly \hQ fruit of the loar which has just 
terminated ; so that, in attempting to deprive the South- 
ern secession leaders of their portion of the honor of up- 
rooting slavery, these monopolizing gentlemen must inev- 
itably take upon themselves the exclusive responsihility of 
brmging on one of the bloodiest and most exhausting con- 
tests of arms that was ever prosecuted. In thus violating 
the truth of history, instead of securing to themselves an 
honorable fame, they really place themselves in a most 
odious and discreditable condition. Let the real fact be 
confessed : secession and abolition united brought on the 
war, and the ruin of the slaveholding system of the South 
is \h.QY£ joint loorh. The striking poetic picture presented 
by Milton in his " Paradise Lost," wherein we learn that 
the cohabitation of Satan and Sin brought Death into ex- 
istence, would really almost seem to have been again ex- 
emplified. 

7. If there be any either so stupid or so illiberal as to 
have heretofore taken it for granted that all in the North- 
ern States concerned in the emancipation efforts were de- 
ficient in the high moral attributes o^ justice and humanity, 



GERRIT SMITH A TRUE PHILANTHROPIST. 427 

how much must they have been surprised of hate to dis- 
cover that some of the most earnest and strenuous advo- 
cates of universal amnesty^ as apphed to those lately in 
rebellion, are persons who for twenty years or more have 
labored unceasingly for the destruction of African slav- 
ery ! The noble and enlightened efforts of the Hon. Ger- 
rit Smith and others of the class mentioned, to counteract 
the unwise and wicked policy of subjecting to capital pun- 
ishment large numbers of those called rebels, have estab- 
lished in their favor claims to the general respect of their 
countrymen and of the world, which ought, for the good 
of mankind, to prove far more enduring than the fame of 
the most renowned conqueror that has ever led soldiers 
to battle. Mr. Smith's discourse on this subject last sum- 
mer, at Cooper Institute, is instinct with the most generous 
sentiments of kindness and true Christian charity, while 
his argument supplying demonstrative proof that it was 
not even possible for treason^ as that great offense has been 
heretofore understood, to have been perpetrated by Jef- 
ferson Davis and his associates, under the peculiar circum- 
stances existing (sustained as that argument was by nu- 
merous authorities the force of which it is impossible to 
counteract), ought to bring the deep blush of shame to the 
cheek of that class of hireling advocates and upstart dema- 
gogues who had before that been contending that nothing 
could be more easy than, in accordance with British and 
American judicial precedents, to work conviction in the 
cases referred to. This view of the subject by no means 
negatives the position that the levying of war upon the 
Federal government is treason^ but simply that the right 
to treat such conduct as treason may be luaived^ or volun- 



428 SCYLLA AND CHAEYBDIS. 

tarily yielded up by a government of unlimited power to' 
do all things in war convenient and needful to its own 
successful prosecution of measures of defense, 

8. True wisdom requires that, while all appropriate 
means should be employed by those who are intrusted 
with the administration of a government professing to be 
free for enforcing the authority of the laws and the es- 
tablished principle^ of order, due care should also be ex- 
ercised, in order to avoid the extinction of the spirit of 
popular liberty, with the idea of which is always neces- 
sarily coupled that of prompt and manly resistance to all 
palpably unconstitutional and oppressive governmental 
acts. It may be well said that this principle of resistance 
to unjust and deeply injurious measures of government 
is the very main-spring of all that we know of republican 
freedom. The Constitution of Tennessee contains lan- 
guage, in reference to this matter, of most emphatic im- 
port, and the celebrated proclamation of Andrew Jackson, 
as well as the able and eloquent speech of President John- 
son, delivered four years ago in the American Senate, may 
be severally regarded as containing a most sound and 
practical exposition of this principle of legidjuate resist- 
ance. 

9, It is admitted by all who are in the least degree 
worthy to be called statesmen^ that, in our complex system 
of government, the reserved and correlative powers of the 
states are indispensable to the prevention of centralism^ 
and, consequently, essential also to the preservation of lib- 
erty. Those, therefore, who are now urging that, in op- 
position to the manly and reasonable, exposition of the 
true meaning of the lately adopted constitutional amend- 



AFRICAN SUFFRAGE. 429 

ment, the Federal government, under that very amend- 
ment, should exercise unlimited control over all the most 
essential domestic concerns of all the states, would seem 
to be willing, in order to execute a favorite theory for the 
amelioration of the condition of a comparatively small 
number of our people recently enfranchised, to consign 
all the remainder of our thirty millions to bondage the 
most degrading, and, at the ^ame time, interminahle. This 
would be, indeed, a good deal more absurd than the con- 
duct of the man who is represented by ^sop as cutting 
up the 'precious goose that laid the golden egg ! 

10. Since those who were lately slaves in the South 
are now freemen^ it is obviously necessary to the welfare 
and happiness of all classes of our population that the peo- 
ple who have been thus enfranchised should, in every legit- 
imate and proper mode, be fitted for the judicious exercise 
of their newly-acquired civil rights, and that they should 
be likewise -supplied with the most convenient means of 
maintaining these rights also against future assailment. 
How far it may be politic, in particular states, for the at- 
tainment of the purpose mentioned, to extend the right 
of suffrage to persons of the African race, is a point well 
worthy of mature consideration ; but President Johnson 
would seem very wisely to have decided that this must 
be left to be regulated exclusively by each of the states 
interested. That these states might, all of them, in the 
condition in which they now find themselves, provide at 
once for the extension of the privilege of voting to all 
possessed of the requisite amount of intelligence, and who 
are, by ties of property, substantially connected with the 
body politic, there appears to be but little reason to doubt. 



430 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

The proposition now so freely discussed in various quar- 
ters, to put all the classes of the 'po'pulation in all the states 
upon precisely the same footing in regard to suffrage^ requir- 
ing uniformly the duplicate qualification specified^ if found 
practicable, may possibly yet turn out to be the true so- 
lution of a difficulty which might well puzzle the wisest 
men that the world has yet produced. As already stated, 
though, this is most clearly a matter for local cognizance 
alone, and any impertinent or dictatorial intermeddling 
with it from exterior quarters must inevitably be product- 
ive of the greatest mischief It will be far " better to bear 
those ills we have, than fly to others that we know not of." 
Calm, courteous, and brotherly interchange of views, and 
temperate, unprejudiced discussion of the question under 
dispute, would probably, in a short time, dissipate all ex- 
isting difficulties. If we can manage to keep out the 
bane of sectionalism^ all will probably be well. 

11. Since penning the above. President Johnson's first 
annual message has reached my hands, and I gladly ex- 
tract therefrom the following emphatic declaration of 
principle, the importance of whicji declaration by the 
executive chief of the republic, at such a moment, can not 
be too highly appreciated : 

" Without states, one great branch of the legislative 
government would be wanting ; and, if we look beyond 
the letter of the Constitution to the character of our coun- 
try, its capacity for comprehending within its jurisdiction 
a vast continental empire is due to the system of states. 
The best security for the perpetual existence of the states 
is the "supreme authority" of the Constitution of the 
United States. The perpetuity of the Constitution brings 



PRESIDENT JOHNSON AS A PACIFICATOR. 431 

with it the perpetuity of the states ; their mutual relation 
makes us what we are, and in our political system their 
connection is indissoluble. The whole can not exist 
without the parts, nor the parts without the whole. So 
long as the Constitution of the United States endures, the 
states will endure ; the destruction of the one is the de- 
struction of the other ; the preservation of the one is the 
preservation of the other. 

"I have thus explained my views of the mutual rela- 
tions of the Constitution and the states, because they un- 
fold the principles on which I have sought to solve the 
momentous question and overcome the appalling difficul- 
ties that met me at the very commencement of my ad- 
ministration. It has been my steadfast object to escape 
from the sway of momentary passions, and to derive a 
healing policy from the fundamental and unchanging 
principles of the Constitution." 

It is not in my nature to be the adulator of men in 
power ; besides, I have lived too long, and have experi- 
enced too many of the changes to which the fortunes of 
men are subjected in this state of being, to expect much 
or to fear viuch from those who any where wield the 
sceptre. of authority. But I can not, in justice to myself, 
refrain from declaring that, if President Johnson shall 
persevere to the end, as I do not doubt that he will, in 
the execution of his admirable scheme of reconstruefton, 
it is evident that the most signal success will crown his 
patriotic efforts. Ninety-nine hundredths of his country- 
men every where will, I am satisfied, accord to him their 
warmest support ; and when the good work of pacifica- 
tion shall have been once accomplished, he will be justly 



432 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

recognized by all truly virtuous and enlightened men as 
the restorer of his country's liberties and the renovator 
of its glories. In view of the great object, now apparent- 
ly almost attained — the renewal of that noble federative 
system devised by our fathers, but which the earthquake 
shock of civil war has so seriously disordered — how con- 
temptible appear the puny sophisticators of the hour, 
who are painfully taxing their overheated brains with 
the utterly unprofitable question whether or not the 
states lately in rebellion did or did not succeed in getting 
out of the pale of the Union by the now exploded expe- 
dient of secession! One thing seems to be sufficiently 
certain : these lately seceding states are at present suffi- 
ciently in the Union to co-operate most promptly and ef- 
fectively in the great constitutional amendment which 
has forever extinguished slavery on this continent, and 
deprived a vaporing and restless fanaticism of that food 
upon which it has heretofore banqueted and grown fear- 
fully potential for mischief The special message of the 
President, which is placed in my hand while I now write, 
sustained as it is by the manly and magnanimous report 
of General Grant, supplies full assurance as to the state 
of public feeling in the South in regard to the condition 
of things brought about inevitably by the war, and ren- 
ders it manifest that, so far as the great body of our vot- 
ing population both North and South is concerned, a cor- 
dial and general reconcilement has been already consum- 
mated. We are now fully justified in expecting for our 
country the realization of all that national prosperity and 
happiness which the most sanguine of our statesmen for- 
merly anticipated for her, before either abolition or seces- 



CO-EQUALITY OF THE STATES. 433 

sion had yet attempted to disturb the public repose, or, 
by their conflicting yet conjoint operation, had involved in 
peril our own hopes of civil and religious freedom, and 
those of the whole world besides. 



CONCLUSION. 

In the present volume facts have been presented and 
reasonings stated which, it seems to me, leave no reason- 
able doubt as to what should be the present action of the 
government if it be desired to resuscitate the happy 
condition of things existing before the commencement 
of the war, the effect of which has been so deleterious- 
ly to discompose the wise and salutary system of checks 
and balances^ without the existence of which a state of 
pure republican liberty would have been impossible. It 
is probable that in a second volume, drawn up under 
more favorable circumstances, and admitting greater free- 
dom of exposition, many additional facts may be exhib- 
ited, somewhat bolder arguments be adduced, and numer- 
ous additional sketches of individual character and illus- 
trative personal anecdotes be supplied, should the plan 
of this work seem to have secured a fair portion of the 
public favo-r. I shall close now, for the present, by an 
emphatic affirmation of a great truth, which I can not but 
hope has been already made sufficiently apparent, that 
the peculiar civic institutions framed by our fathers can 
not be made preservative of permanent freedom except 
by restoring as soon as possible the original coequality of 

T 



434 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

the states, upon the essentiality of which Mr. Pinckney 
so cogently and eloquently insisted in the memorable 
Missouri struggle of 1819. Extinguish this coequality 
in any way, and, instead of a republic, we will necessari- 
ly bring into existence an imperial despotism^ by what- 
ever name called. Subject to enslavement the numer- 
ous distinct communities formerly enjoying liberty, and 
vest the power of controlling all the domestic concerns 
of each of them in a central government, whether that 
central government shall consist of a Koman Senate, 
with an Imperator or military commander in chief at 
its head, or of an American Congress, with a similar 
commander-in-chief called President^ empowered to coun- 
sel it in regard to all public questions, and it will not 
be possible to prevent the rapid concentration of all 
civil power in the legislative and executive department 
of the system first, and very soon thereafter the consol- 
idation of all power in the hands of a single individual, 
which individual will, of course, be the executive officer 
who wields the luar power. The experience of nations 
Is uniform on this subject; and even had no such fatal 
example of the ruin of freedom heretofore occurred, it 
would really seem that a mere statement of this proposi- 
tion, as a yet unproven theorem^ ought to be sufficient to 
enforce the important truth referred to upon the most 
opaque intellect. I do not desire to be understood on 
this occasion as denying, nor is it indeed at all necessary 
for any purpose the attainment of which is at this mo- 
ment desirable, that the government existing in Wash- 
ington City was not, in order to preserve its own exist- 
ence, fully justified in wielding all the powers which it 



PRESIDENT JOHNSON AND HIS OPPONENTS. 435 

is known, upon tlie ground of military necessity.^ to have 
employed ; nor is it necessary either to dispute the prop- 
osition so earnestly insisted upon in certain quarters at 
present, that these vast powers, once seized upon, may 
continue to be wielded by that government permanent- 
ly, if it shall choose to do so, over those unfortunate 
eleven millions of American people whom the terrible 
exigencies of war and the unwise perseverance in hos- 
tilities up to the moment when, as has been seen, they 
were compelled to submit unconditionally to the will of 
the conqueror. But the still graver and more vital ques- 
tion now is, Shall this sweeping enslavement be enforced, 
when such enforcement must inevitably result in the ul- 
timate enslavement also of the additional nineteen mil- 
lions of our whole federal population ? In other words, 
would those in the two houses of Congress at this mo- 
ment act wisely in pursuing such a course as all far-see- 
ing and considerate statesmen would unite in assuring 
them must necessarily subject to despotic rule the very 
people who have selected them as the defenders of their 
own liberties? I am afraid that unprejudiced men in 
future generations will be inclined to recognize the strug- 
gle now progressing in Washington City, in connection 
with President Johnson's reconstruction policy, as a strug- 
gle between philosophic and discriminating statesmen on 
the one side, and factionists and demagogues on the oth- 
er. For, after all, what is the distinction between these 
two classes of individuals ? I understand that a states- 
man is one who understands the concerns of his vjhole 
country^ and who exercises also a kindly and providing 
care over all of these concerns for the general good of 



436 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

the whole nation, and not only for its temporary good, 
but for its lasting welfare ; while a factionist is jpurhlind 
in his very nature and moral constitution, delights in 
indulging one-sided and narrow views, acts alone in fur- 
therance of what he supposes to be the interest of his 
own particular class or faction, or, what is worse still, in 
order to obtain for himself and his immediate associates 
a little momentary eclat, or the contemptible and unprof- 
itable gratification of his and their ungenerous prejudices, 
or unphilosophic and unamiable lust of power. The con- 
duct of the patriot statesman is ever regulated by prin- 
dple; for the maintenance of principles he will dare to 
despise faction^ and all its seductive rewards and fiend- 
ish menaces. Party, as we all know, is far superior in 
dignity to faction ; and yet the patriot statesman will not 
hesitate to disjoin himself from party itself, in order to 
preserve his country's freedom and happiness. Who now 
blames Edmund Burke for openly abandoning the Whig 
party in England, with which he had been so long and 
so honorably allied, in order to aid in rescuing the British 
isles from Jacobinical influences, at that moment being- 
imported from the school of Marat, of Danton, and Eobes- 
pierre? Who now rails at Sir Kobert Peel for dissolv- 
ing his political affiliation with the opponents of Catholic 
Emancipation, of Free Trade, and of Parliamentary Ee- 
form ? Who, save a few absurd bigots, now denounces 
Mr. Clay for declaring, in 1850, that if the Whig party, 
of which he had been once the acknowledged embodi- 
ment^ should become aholitionized^ he would no longer 
hold connection with it? Who does not admire even 
Washington still more highly when he learns from Mr. 



) 



THE STATESMAN AND THE FACTIONIST. 437 

Jefferson's posthumous writings, that the Father of his 
Country was never seen even for a moment to sink into 
a mere party devotee ? It is even asserted, on high au- 
thority, that circumstances may exist in which a great 
statesman might feel justified, amid the fierce and ever- 
shifting currents of party conflict, to act, on principle^ 
sometimes with one of two antagonizing factions, some- 
times with the opposing one, in order, by casting the 
weight of his influence now into one scale, now into 
another, to preserve the contending civic forces in a 
state of harmless equipoise. It was just such conduct 
as this which posterity has so much admired in the in- 
corruptible and enlightened Halifax, in the latter part of 
the seventeenth century, and on account of which the 
illiberal zealots of party denounced him as a '•^ trimmer ;'^ 
and it is gratifying to learn from the page of authentic 
history that this great and good man,"''^ "instead of quar- 
reling with his nickname, assumed it as a title of honor, 
and vindicated, with great vivacity, the dignity of the ap- 
pellation. Every thing good, he said, trimmed hetween 
extremes. The temperate zone trims between the climate 
in which men are roasted and the climate in which 
they are frozen. The English Church trims between 
the Anabaptist madness and the Papist lethargy. The 
English Constitution trims between Turkish despotism 
and Polish anarchy; virtue is nothing but a just tem- 
per between propensities, any one of which, if indulged 
to excess, becomes vice; nay, the perfection of the Su- 
preme Being himself consists in the exact equilibrium 
of attributes none of which could preponderate without 

* Macaulay, 



438 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

disturbing the whole moral and physical order of the 
world."'^ 

* Those familiar with the public career of Cicero, who was unquestion- 
ably the ablest and most politic statesman of ancient times, and if not the 
first of orators ancient or modern, certainly only inferior to Demosthenes, 
will remember that there was much in his conduct at different periods 
which indicated that he too had learned that it was neither wise nor safe 
for a public man of great eminence and of extended influence to suffer 
any political faction, struggling fiercely for ascendency, to appropriate to 
itself exclusively his whole weight and influence. Accordingly, we find 
him now the champion of the knights, now the vindicator of the Senate, 
and now the professed advocate of popular rights. While it seemed pos- 
sible to effect reconcilement between Pompey and Cassar he joined the 
faction of neither, professing friendship for both, and striving to prevent 
that collision between them which he feared might result in civil war. 
When, in spite of his efforts to prevent it, war between these celebrated 
chieftains commenced, it is known that he hesitated long whether to join 
the «ne or the other, or to remain neutral ; and when, finally, he withdrew 
from Rome and took refuge in Pompey's camp, it was so impossible that 
he could play the ignoble part of a mere partisan, that he more than once 
found his life in danger from the violence of those who, forgetful of the 
cause of freedom, had become the willing slaves of him whose ruin was 
soon to be consummated at Pharsalia. Even Cato condemned him for 
not remaining upon neutral ground, so as to interpose effectively, if possi- 
ble, for the restoration of peace ; and, long after Pompey had perished, 
Cicero more than once expressed doubt whether it had not been better for 
Rome and the general interests of freedom for Cassar to have been trium- 
phant, than to have been compelled to succumb to the power of his less 
magnanimous rival. Such a man as this could hardly be expected to 
"give up to party what was meant for mankind/^ 

Additional Note. 
I am far from assuming that I have read more of history than other 
men, but yet I feel justified in declaring that, to the extent of my historic 
knowledge, there is no instance which can be cited wherein distinguished 
public men have more signally blundered than have several gentlemen of 
no little renown in the two houses of Congress in regard to the manner in 



CONCILIATION THE TRUEST WISDOM. 439 

In view of the cheering signs of national redintegration 
now disclosing themselves in Washington City, I am sure 

which it is now proper to deal with the Southern people, in order to insure 
permanent domestic quiet and the general happiness of the republic. The 
people of the South have been conquered in war; they feel and know this 
fact, and in general they submit to their fate with a calm and unmurmur- 
ing acquiescence which might well awaken the sympathy and admiration 
of the world. They know that slavery is dead, and they would not revive 
it even if they could. The former slaveholding class are especially in- 
clined to acquiesce in all the results which the war has produced; and it 
is an undoubted fact, of which I could adduce innumerable evidences, that 
any hostile feeling now existing in the South toward the enfranchised 
blacks is almost exclusively confined to the poor laboring whites, who, 
very naturally perhaps, are unwilling that the field of industry shall be 
occupied by the sons and daughters of Africa to their own exclusion. 1 
speak of what I personally know when I assert that there is a widespread 
and almost universal feeling of good-will and sincere amity prevalent 
among the people of the South at this moment toward those with whom 
they were lately conflicting in arms, so far as the treatment they are re- 
ceiving will allow of it. They are full of respect and gratitude toward 
President Johnson and those now so nobly aiding him in the endeavor 
to restore them to the free and independent condition which they occupied 
before the war; and they are, above all things, anxious to have an oppor- 
tunity of showing how sincere they are in their desire to perform all the 
duties of free citizenship, and co-operate with good men every where in 
all that can promote the national honor and happiness. Independent of 
the information which the President has recently caused to be laid before 
Congress on this important subject, I may be permitted here to state, that 
the senators and representatives who have been recently sent from the 
South are, almost to a man, persons heretofore pre-eminently distinguish- 
ed as imbued with conservative feeling. If admitted promptly to their 
seats, I am confident that their conduct will be such, in all respects, as will 
best conduce to the restoration of general amity and concord. The moral 
effect in the South of such early admission can not be well estimated, save 
by those who, from a long Southern residence, are famdiar with their emi- 
inent standing, both in social life and upon the general popular mind If 
admitted, the voice of faction will be immediately quieted, sectional dema- 



440 SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS. 

that I shall rouse no feeling of painful self-consciousness 
in a certain high official quarter, if I assert that a Presi- 
dent of the United States, to be truly worthy of his high 
position, amid such dangers and difficulties as now exist, 
must, to a certain extent, hold himself aloof from party 
and faction, and be able to survey, with a calm composure 
of spirit, all the strivings and blustrous agitations of those 
who seek to make him the mere slave and instrument op^ 
party malevolence and prejudice, while a nation is de- 
manding at his hands the performance of the most exalt- 
ed duties which man has it in his power to perform on 
this side of the grave. 

gogues will have at once to go into retirement, and such a burst of grati- 
tude will resound as this republic has not heretofore known. Coercion has 
now done all that it was capable of effecting toward the work of national 
pacification. Conciliation and kindness are at present alone needed to 
consummate this work, and sagacious statesmen will not fail to perceive 
the truth that Milton has so strikingly enforced, when he says, 

"■ Who overcomes 
By force liath overcome but half hia foe." 



THE END. 



